UNIVERSITY 
CALIFORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 


:  N  3     A 


E    RE  A         NDIA 


J  .    D  .    R  E  E  S 

G.V.O.,  C.I.E.,  M.P. 

LATE  MEMBER  OF  THE  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  OF  INDIA'S  COUNCIL 


VOLUME  XIX 


J.   B.  MILLET   COMPANY 

BOSTON  AND  TOKYO 


COPYRIGHT,  1910 
BY    J.    B.    MILLET    CO. 


THE  •  PLIMPTON  •  PRESS 

[W  -D -o] 
NORWOOD  •  MASS  •  U  •  S  •  A 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

EDITORIAL  NOTE ix 

I    EARLY  HISTORY       . 3 

II    LATER  HISTORY       .           35 

III  THE  LAND  SYSTEM 68 

IV  THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  INDIA 99 

V    REVENUES  AND  TAXATION 126 

VI    NATIVE  STATES 149 

VII    UNREST 161 

VIII    UNREST  (Continued) 189 

IX    THE  CONGRESS        223 

X    SOCIAL  REFORM 240 

XI    ECONOMIC  POLICY         275 

INDEX  323 


516574 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Evening  in  the  Avenue  of  Jaipur     ....     Frontispiece 

Group  of  Hindoos,  Maratta  Caste 32 

La  Martiniere 64 

Bombay  from  Mazaguon  Hill     . 96 

A  Native  Indian  Village  near  Calcutta 192 

Golcondah  Tombs  with  Fort  in  Distance     ....      224 


Vll 


EDITORIAL   NOTE 

i 

NO  more  competent  person  could  be  found  to 
describe  the  real  India  than  Colonel  J.  D.  Rees, 
the  author  of  this  volume.  He  has  lived  for 
over  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  that  country,  has  passed 
through  nearly  all  the  grades  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service, 
and  he  possesses,  furthermore,  the  high  qualification  of 
being  a  master  of  most  of  the  languages  and  dialects 
spoken  by  the  natives  of  that  vast  country,  as  well  as  of 
Russian.  This  has  enabled  him  to  get  nearer  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  its  teeming  millions  than  most  men  who 
write  on  India  have  done,  and  his  knowledge  of  Russian 
has  enabled  him  to  fathom  more  completely  than  most 
the  real  significance  of  the  attitude  of  Russia  towards 
India  and  the  Far  East. 

The  first  chapter  contains  a  sketch  of  the  past  his- 
tory of  India,  showing  the  perpetual  state  of  warfare  and 
oppression  which  existed  up  to  the  time  of  the  Mogul 
Empire,  and  how  little  good  government  was  enjoyed  by 
the  people  during  the  latter  period  which  is  now  repre- 
sented by  agitators  as  the  Golden  Age. 

The  consolidation  of  the  British  Empire  is  hardly 
noticed,  since  that  is  the  most  familiar  period  of  Indian 
history,  but  a  glimpse  is  given  of  the  anarchy  and  misery 
which  followed  upon  the  break-up  of  the  Mogul  Empire 
and  the  predatory  predominance  of  the  Mahrattas. 

A  brief  account  is  then  given  of  the  land  system  of  the 

ix 


EDITORIAL    NOTE 

British  Government,  showing  how  much  more  favourable 
to  the  landowner  and  cultivator  it  is  than  that  of  its 
predecessors  in  title,  whose  system,  nevertheless,  it  closely 
follows.  The  constitution  of  the  Government  of  India  is 
explained,  its  financial  system,  the  policy  pursued  towards 
the  native  states  and  on  the  frontier,  the  causes  and  char- 
acter of  the  present  unrest,  and  the  connection  therewith 
of  the  Hindoo  Congress,  the  character  of  the  reforms  sug- 
gested by  Mr.  Morley  and  Lord  Minto,  and  now  under 
the  consideration  of  the  local  administration  and  of  the 
general  public,  are  all  fully  set  forth. 

A  chapter  follows  on  social  reform,  and  incidentally 
some  account  is  given  of  the  domestic  life  of  the  Indians, 
a  fascinating  subject,  and  a  mirror,  in  many  respects,  of 
life  in  the  pantheistic  and  polytheistic  times,  with  which 
those  are  familiar,  who  read  the  classics  in  school.  A 
final  chapter  deals  with  the  economic  conditions  of  the 
country,  and  the  economic  policy  of  the  Government  of 
India. 

The  work  is  avowedly  and  frankly  written  from  the 
British  point  of  view,  and  this  should  be  borne  in  mind 
while  reading  the  author's  most  instructive  account  of 
the  attitude  of  the  English  official  mind  towards  the  great 
and  important  questions  with  which  the  English  Govern- 
ment has  to  deal  in  administering  the  affairs  of  the  enor- 
mous agglomeration  of  different  races,  for  the  peace  and 
safety  of  which  it  is  responsible. 

One  of  the  greatest  problems  that  has  ever  confronted 
the  British  Government  is  that  with  which  it  is  now  called 
upon  to  deal  in  India.  The  spirit  of  unrest,  the  desire 
for  greater  personal  liberty,  the  desire  to  take  part  in 
the  Government,  has  arisen  in  India  and  will  not  down. 
The  assassin  has  already  begun  his  work  in  an  attempt 


EDITORIAL    NOTE 

to  protest  against  conditions  which  are  resented  by  many 
of  the  natives.  Only  recently  in  London  itself  an  English- 
Indian  official  was  assassinated  by  a  native  "student." 
How  this  "new  spirit"  has  been  awakened  and  fostered 
in  India,  and  the  attitude  of  England  toward  it,  are  dealt 
with  in  this  volume  among  many  other  matters.  This 
is  a  question  of  vital  interest,  for  the  teeming  millions 
of  India  may  one  day  be  threatening  the  peace  of  the 
whole  world. 

CHARLES  WELSH. 


INDIA 

THE  REAL  INDIA 


INDIA 

THE  REAL  INDIA1 

CHAPTER  I 

EARLY  HISTORY 

THE  poverty  of  language  is  responsible  for 
describing  as  a  country  the  vast  sub-conti- 
nent which  stretches  from  the  eighth  to  the 
thirty-sixth  degree  of  latitude,  from  the  roof  of  the 
world  beyond  the  Himalayas  to  the  Southern  Ocean, 
which  includes  1,766,597  of  square  miles,  and  a  popu- 
lation of  300,000,000.  The  provinces  under  imme- 
diate British  administration  comprise  upwards  of 
61,  and  the  native  states  upwards  of  38  per  cent,  of 
the  whole,  and  of  the  population  62,461,000  inhabit 
the  latter  area.  Of  the  British  provinces  Burma 
is  somewhat  smaller  than  Austria-Hungary;  Bengal 
and  Bombay  are  both  bigger  than  Sweden,  and 
Madras  is  about  the  same  size  as  Prussia  and  Den- 
mark taken  together,  while,  of  the  native  states, 
Hyderabad  is  rather  larger,  and  Cashmere  rather 

1  The  author's  use  of  "  we,"  "  our,"  "  the  Government,"  etc.,  when  refer- 
ring to  the  British  and  the  British  Government,  have  not  been  changed,  in 
order  that  the  point  of  view  of  the  writer  may  be  the  more  emphasised. 
Nor  has  the  English  been  changed  into  American  money,  since  any  one 
can  readily  mentally  multiply  the  English  pounds  by  five  to  convert  them 
into  American  dollars. 


INDIA 

smaller,  than  Great  Britain.  So  little  do  different 
parts  of  the  empire  resemble  one  another  that  the 
density  of  the  population  varies  from  11  to  1920  to 
the  square  mile  in  different  regions  in  the  wide  area 
extending  from  the  Persian  frontier  to  the  Chinese 
march,  and  from  the  passes  of  eternal  snow  to  the 
burning  jungles  of  Malabar.  One  male  in  10,  and 
one  woman  in  144,  is  literate,  and  in  educational 
eminence  the  order  of  precedence  is  Burma,  Madras, 
Bombay,  and  Bengal.  The  native  states  of  Cochin 
and  Travancore,  however,  rank  higher  in  this  respect 
than  any  British  province,  and  therein  Christians  are 
25  per  cent,  of  the  population  as  against  1  per  cent, 
throughout  India.  Four-fifths  of  the  Christians  of 
Madras  are  found  south  of  that  city,  and  of  all  our 
co-religionists  in  the  continent  two-thirds  are  found 
in  the  same  Presidency.  Agriculture  in  some  form 
is  the  occupation  of  about  two-thirds  of  the  whole 
population,  though  nearly  three  millions  are  now  em- 
ployed in  exotic  occupation  such  as  railways,  tele- 
graphs, cotton  and  jute  mills,  coal  and  gold  mines, 
and  tea  and  coffee  estates. 

It  is  believed  that,  in  the  times  succeeding  the 
stone  ages,  Upper  India  was  inhabited  by  more  or 
less  dark-coloured  tribes,  who  were  gradually  driven 
southwards  by  fairer  peoples  from  the  north,  of 
Aryan  stock,  but  whose  descendants  are  still  found 
in  various  remote  and  hilly  tracts.  The  Hindoos 
hold  that  the  earliest  of  their  Vedas  or  historic  hymns 
was  written  3000  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ, 
when  the  eleventh  dynasty  was  reigning  in  Egypt, 

4 


EARLY    HISTORY 

and  the  great  pyramid  of  Cheops  had  already  stood 
1000  years,  but  it  is  considered  doubtful  if  the  book 
and  religion  of  the  Vedas  really  existed  more  than 
800  years  before  the  foundation,  in  the  sixth  century, 
of  the  religions  of  Zoroaster,  Buddha,  and  Confucius. 
Later  Vedas  describe  conditions  not  unlike  those  at 
present  existing,  with  the  caste  system  well  estab- 
lished, and  the  Brahmins  occupying  that  position 
of  pre-eminence  which  the  spread  of  English  educa- 
tion has  only  confirmed,  albeit  the  recipients  are  now 
anxious  to  rule  India  without  any  help  from  Britain 
but  that  of  her  arms,  and  without  any  of  that  super- 
vision which  ensures  equal  justice  to  all  castes  and 
classes. 

The  Brahmins  simplified  the  Vedic  faith,  and 
made  it  intelligible  to  the  people  as  a  religion  of 
one  God  in  three  revelations  of  the  Creator,  Pre- 
server, and  Destroyer,  and  they  absorbed  into  the 
Hindoo  Pantheon  the  masses  of  the  people  who  wor- 
shipped the  forces  of  nature  and  their  manifestation 
in  man. 

As  long  ago  as  the  time  when  JSschylus,  Sopho- 
cles, and  Euripides  were  writing  in  Greece,  they  had 
worked  out  a  system  of  philosophy,  law,  medicine, 
and  music,  much  of  which,  through  the  agency  of 
the  Arab  scholars  at  the  Abbasid  court  at  Baghdad, 
was  introduced  into  Europe.  Their  chief  epics  are 
the  Mahabharata  and  the  Ramayana,  the  former  of 
which  relates  to  contests  which  took  place  round 
Delhi  two  or  three  hundred  years  before  the  date 
of  the  epics  of  Homer. 

5 


INDIA 

The  Brahmins  had  hardly  established  their  ascend- 
ency, when  Buddha  rose,  about  540  B.C.,  to  found 
the  religion  which  still,  in  point  of  numbers,  is  the 
greatest  in  the  world.  The  same  century  witnessed 
the  foundation  of  the  system  of  Zoroaster,  which 
obtained  in  Persia  till  it  was  driven  out  by  the 
Mohammedans,  when  a  small  minority  fled  and 
settled  on  the  west  coast  of  India,  to  found  the  com- 
mercial prosperity  of  Bombay,  to  provide  repre- 
sentatives for  the  Indian  Legislative  Councils,  and, 
until  the  present  day,  two  members  to  the  British 
Parliament. 

The  system  of  Buddha  inculcated  the  efficacy  of 
works,  the  uselessness  of  priests,  the  futility  of  sac- 
rifice. It  flourished  as  a  rival  to  Brahminism  till 
the  eve  of  the  Mohammedan  conquests  in  the  ninth 
century,  when  it  was  driven  to  the  north  and  north- 
east of  the  Himalayas,  and  to  the  farther  east,  after 
absorbing  the  indigenous  tree  and  serpent  worship, 
and  refining  the  coarser  superstitions  of  the  aborigi- 
nal Indians. 

To  the  Greeks,  to  whom  we  owe  so  much  in  so 
many  other  directions,  we  also  owe  our  earliest 
accounts  of  India.  Although  the  father  of  history 
wrote  of  the  eastern  Ethiopians,  and  Darius,  son  of 
Hystaspes,  added  part  of  the  north-west  of  the  sub- 
continent to  the  Persian  Empire,  it  was  not  until  the 
expedition  of  Alexander  (327  B.C.)  that  the  Greeks 
came  in  actual  contact  with  what  is  now  called  the 
Punjaub,  and  the  country  lying  between  it  and 
Persia  proper.  Of  the  Greek  writers,  Ktesias  (circ. 

6 


EARLY   HISTORY 

400  B.C.),  survives  in  mere  fragments.  But  even  in 
his  time  the  indigenous  Indians  were  subject  to  for- 
eign domination,  or  were  secured  from  subjugation 
in  inaccessible  mountains,  propitiating  by  presents 
the  kings  of  the  immigrant  Aryans.  Megasthe- 
nes  was  sent  as  ambassador  by  Seleucus,  the  ruler 
of  a  fair  fragment  of  Alexander's  divided  empire, 
to  Chandragupta,  king  of  Palibrotha,  or  Patna, 
about  300  B.C.  His  writings  are  of  great  value,  and 
any  traveller  in  the  Punjaub  to-day  can  confirm  his 
statement  that  the  inhabitants  exceed  the  ordinary 
stature,  and  are  distinguished  by  their  proud  bear- 
ing. Subsequent  historians  have  noted,  as  he  did, 
that,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  during  war  in 
India,  husbandmen  were  regarded  as  a  class  sacred 
and  inviolable,  whereby  warfare  was  rendered  less 
terrible  than  it  is  in  civilised  countries.  Manucci, 
however,  one  of  the  best  witnesses,  dissipates  this 
comfortable  theory  by  actual  relation  of  what  oc- 
curred in  the  reign  of  Aurangzeb.  At  the  present 
day,  when  socialism  raises  its  head,  all  may  admire, 
as  he  did,  laws  "which  bound  everyone  equally,  but 
allowed  property  to  be  unevenly  distributed." 

Amateur  critics  of  the  policy  of  the  Government 
of  India  may  learn  from  Megasthenes  (confirmed  by 
Strabo,  20  A.D.)  that  the  Indians  paid  land  tribute 
to  the  king,  "because  all  India  is  the  property  of  the 
Crown,  and  no  private  person  is  permitted  to  own 
land.  The  husbandman  tilled  the  land  on  condition 
of  receiving  one-fourth  of  the  produce." 

Those  who  think  that  the  English  introduced 
:,  ..  7 


INDIA 

strong  drink  into  India  will  learn  with  surprise  from 
this  ancient  writer  that  the  Indians  of  his  day  drank 
wine.  Some  light  is  also  thrown  upon  a  subject 
which  even  now  excites  controversy  by  the  state- 
ment that  women  bore  children  at  the  age  of  seven, 
and  became  old  at  forty.  A  Greek  merchant  wrote 
the  "Periplus  of  the  Erythrean  Sea"  probably  about 
80  A.D.,  and  he  tells  of  trade  in  slaves,  horses,  mules, 
butter,  ivory,  pearls,  silk,  and  porphyry,  besides 
many  kinds  of  plants  and  their  produce,  including 
spice,  indigo,  and  frankincense.  Much  business  was 
done  too  in  rice,  pepper,  and  wine,  in  iron,  copper, 
gold,  precious  stones,  and  wearing  apparel.  In  all 
these  substances,  the  author  traded,  making  voyages 
from  Berenice,  in  the  southern  extremity  of  Egypt, 
to  African,  Arabian,  and  Indian  ports. 

Arrian,  the  pupil  of  Epictetus,  and  contemporary 
of  Marcus  Aurelius,  writing  about  150  A.D.,  recorded 
the  fact  that  superintendents  holding  an  office  analo- 
gous to  that  of  Chinese  censors,  reported  every- 
thing that  took  place  to  the  king,  where  the  people 
had  such  a  one,  or  to  the  magistrates  where  they 
were  self -governed  —  that  is  to  say,  where  there 
were  independent  towns  like  the  Greek  republics. 
He  found  the  caste  system  in  full  force  and  vigour. 
If  these  ancient  writers  mixed  fable  and  fact,  the 
inhabitants  of  India  at  the  present  day  hardly  dis- 
tinguish between  mythological  and  historical  periods, 
and  it  is  remarkable  that,  with  the  exception  of  these 
old  Greek  writings,  no  histories  have  been  composed 
about  India  until  the  time  of  the  Mohammedan 

8 


EARLY    HISTORY 

conquest.  The  Hindoos,  indeed,  are  not  chroni- 
clers, and  in  the  past  they  preferred,  as  to  a  great 
extent  they  do  at  present  prefer,  speculation  and 
philosophy  to  facts  and  deductions  of  more  imme- 
diate practical  value.  Thus  peculiar  importance 
attaches  to  such  information  as  we  have  regarding 
the  Grseco-Bactrian  kingdom.  It  is  with  some 
surprise  we  find  Philostratos  recording  that  the 
Pythagorean  philosopher,  Apollonius,  in  the  preced- 
ing century,  had  been  received  on  the  banks  of  the 
Indus  by  a  Greek-speaking  king,  the  simplicity  of 
whose  life  and  personal  appointments  survives  to 
this  day  amongst  the  princes  of  south-western  India, 
who  have  never  come  under  the  immediate  influence 
of  foreign  rule.  These  Greek  writers  constantly  refer 
to  the  considerable  commerce  carried  on  between 
Rome  and  the  Malabar  coast  until  the  third  cen- 
tury of  our  era,  and  600  years  previously  Herodotus 
realised  more  fully  than  we  do  to-day  in  England 
"that  there  are  many  races  of  Indians  who  do  not 
speak  the  same  language  as  one  another."  Twenty 
centuries  ago  the  Romans  realised  the  propinquity 
of  India  better  than  we  do  to-day:  "Quantum  enim 
est  quod  ab  ultimis  litoribus  Hispance  usque  ab  Indos 
jacet.  Paucissimorum  dierum  spatium." 

These  old  writers  describe  the  complex  and  civil- 
ised character  of  life  in  ancient  Indian  cities,  where 
there  were  inspectors  of  industrial  arts,  and  enter- 
tainments, of  births,  deaths;  of  retail  and  barter;  of 
weights,  measures,  and  manufactures,  and  of  military 
and  naval  affairs. 

9 


INDIA 

While  Pliny  tells  us  that  the  companions  of  Alex- 
ander had  written  that  India  was  a  third  part  of  the 
world,  and  the  multitude  of  its  inhabitants  was  past 
reckoning,  the  Census  Commissioner  in  1901  records 
the  fact  that  India  is,  in  point  of  population,  about 
a  fifth  part  of  the  whole  world,  and  that  its  inhab- 
itants number  nearly  300,000,000. 

To  this  day  the  Indian  Peninsula  deserves  the 
description  given  to  it  in  the  third  century  by  Diony- 
sius,  who  praises  the  lovely  land  of  the  Indians, 
"last  of  all  lands,  upon  the  very  lips  of  the  ocean, 
where  ascends  the  sun,  scattering  heat  and  radiance 
over  the  works  of  gods  and  men."  The  India  of 
classical  times  included,  of  course,  Afghanistan  and 
the  surrounding  regions.  Seleucus  was  so  occupied 
in  founding  the  monarchy  of  Syria  that  he  handed 
over  to  the  Chandragupta  the  Greek  conquests  in 
the  last-named  country,  and  in  India,  and  his  grand- 
son, Antiochus,  entered  into  a  treaty  with  Asoka, 
the  grandson  of  Chandragupta,  in  256  B.C.  For  a 
hundred  years  subsequently  the  Greek  rulers  of 
Bactria  fitfully  invaded  India,  but,  beyond  an  occa- 
sional discovery  of  coins,  little  trace  of  their  domina- 
tion remains.  From  the  time  the  Greek  invasions 
ceased,  those  of  the  Scythians  or  Tartars,  and  of 
the  Turks  or  Turkomans,  commenced.  The  tribes 
of  Central  Asia  then  began  to  make  those  descents 
into  the  more  favoured  country  upon  the  south-east 
and  south-west  of  their  cold  and  barren  home,  which 
culminated  in  the  devastation  of  Genghis  Khan  and 
Timour  the  Tartar.  They  drove  the  Greek  dynasty 

10 


EARLY    HISTORY 

from  Bactria,  destroyed  the  Greek  settlements  of 
the  Punjaub,  and  founded  a  kingdom  in  Cashmere. 

These  inroads  continued  till  the  fifth  century, 
during  which  time  the  indigenous  inhabitants  strove 
with  varying  success  to  withstand  the  invaders. 
The  Scythians  and  Tartars  belonged  to  four  great 
races:  the  Mongolians  from  the  country  north  of 
the  Great  Wall  of  China;  the  Tungusians,  to  which 
the  present  Manchu  dynasty  of  China  belongs;  the 
Ugrians,  or  Fins,  who  settled  in  the  west  of  Asia 
and  the  north  of  Europe,  to  which  branch  the 
Magyars  of  Hungary  belong,  and  the  Turkish,  the 
most  famous,  which  occupied  the  middle  country 
extending  from  Lake  Baikal  to  the  land  of  the  Slavs. 

In  614,  Chosroes  had  advanced  the  Persian  boun- 
dary to  the  neighbourhood  of  Constantinople  and  to 
the  Nile,  and  on  his  return  from  this  successful  cam- 
paign he  was  invited  by  an  emissary  of  Mohammed 
to  embrace  the  religion  which  subsequently  became 
that  of  Persia,  and  also  of  the  great  swarm  of  bar- 
barians, one  branch  of  which  founded  the  Mogul 
Empire  in  India. 

During  the  wars  of  the  Emperor  Heraclius  with 
the  Persians,  the  latter  joined  forces  with  the  Avars, 
who,  however,  besieged  Constantinople,  whereupon 
the  distracted  Emperor  entered  into  alliance  with  the 
Turks,  but  no  sooner  had  he  thus  triumphed  over 
the  Persians  than  the  Arab  followers  of  Mohammed 
commenced  to  conquer  the  provinces  he  had  hardly 
rescued  from  the  successor  of  Cyrus.  Thus  Islam 
marched  towards  India.  The  prophet  Mohammed, 

11 


INDIA 

born  in  569,  a  homeless  and  friendless  fugitive  in 
622,  in  630  declared  war  upon  Heraclius,  Emperor 
of  the  East,  and  within  a  hundred  years  of  his  death, 
in  632,  his  successors  had  defeated  the  feeble  descend- 
ant of  Chosroes  on  the  field  of  Cadesia,  in  710.  The 
conquest  of  Khorassan  was  followed  by  that  of 
Transoxiana,  when  for  the  first  time  the  Crescent 
appeared  on  the  banks  of  the  Indus,  and  the  con- 
nection of  the  Mohammedans  with  India  was  com- 
menced, in  that  full  tide  of  glory  and  fanaticism 
which  spread  the  faith  of  Islam  from  the  Guadal- 
quivir to  the  sands  of  Sind. 

To  the  era  of  Mohammedan  conquests  succeeded 
one  of  letters,  and  the  rivals  who  divided  the  inheri- 
tance of  Islam  —  the  Fatimite  in  Africa,  the  Omme- 
iad  in  Spain,  and  the  Abbasid  in  Baghdad  —  vied 
with  one  another  in  the  encouragement  of  learning. 

Meanwhile  India,  whither  expeditions  had  been 
sent  in  the  reign  of  Othman  in  636,  and  later  in 
662  and  664,  had  rest  till  712.  Though  in  the  ninth 
century  the  Arabs  took  Crete  and  Sicily,  and  threat- 
ened Rome,  the  adoption  of  a  Turkish  guard  by  the 
Caliphs  was  only  one  of  many  signs  of  the  seeds  of 
decay.  Africa  and  Spain  became  independent  king- 
doms, Syria  and  Egypt  were  usurped  by  Turkish 
slaves,  and  indigenous  Persian  dynasties  reigned 
in  Persia  and  Khorassan. 

In  like  manner,  the  loosely  consolidated  Empire 
of  the  Turks  lasted  only  from  545  to  750,  though 
the  Emperors  of  Rome  and  China  paid  tribute  to 
its  head;  and  its  broken  fragments  existed  as  sepa- 

12 


EARLY   HISTORY 

rate  and  independent  kingdoms,  of  whose  history  we 
know  very  little,  until  Mahmud  of  Ghuzni  (1001  to 
1030)  rose  to  power  and  pre-eminence,  and  organised 
no  less  than  thirteen  invasions  of  India. 

It  was  in  650  that  the  Caliph  Othman's  Governor 
of  Kufa  reduced  the  Persian  borders  of  the  Caspian 
Sea,  and  converted  its  inhabitants  to  the  faith  of 
Islam,  while  the  Governor  of  Busra  subdued  the 
provinces  of  Seistan,  Kohistan,  Nishapur,  Ghor, 
Herat,  Merv,  and  Balkh. 

A  further  move  in  the  direction  of  India  was  made 
in  664,  the  Caliph  Moawiya's  general,  penetrating 
as  far  as  Multan.  In  712  the  Arab  General  Kasim 
invaded  Sind  and  settled  in  the  Indus  valley,  which 
the  Mohammedans  retained  till  828,  though  it  was 
not  till  the  days  of  Mahmud  of  Ghuzni  that  any  per- 
manent occupation  was  effected.  Mahmud  was  the 
son  of  Sabuktegin,  who  was  a  Turk  of  the  house- 
hold of  Alptegin,  Governor  of  Khorassan,  under 
the  Samani  dynasty,  which  ruled  over  Transoxiana, 
with  its  capital  at  Bokhara,  and  had  risen  to  emi- 
nence during  the  reign  of  Mamun,  son  of  Harun  al 
Raschid.  ^ 

Alptegin  made  himself  independent,  with  a  cap- 
ital at  Ghuzni,  and  Sabuktegin  became  his  son-in- 
law,  and  ultimately  his  successor.  The  latter  prince 
took  Khandahar  and  marched  to  the  Indus,  where 
he  defeated  the  Hindoo  King  of  Lahore,  upon  whom 
he  came  down,  as  the  historian  Ferishta  says,  like 
the  wolf  on  the  fold. 

Sabuktgin  died  in  997,  and  upon  his  death-bed  he 

13 


INDIA 

said  that  in  the  efforts  man  makes  to  avert  disease, 
with  the  hope  of  recovery,  he  resembles  the  condition 
of  the  butcher  and  the  sheep  which  is  often  bound 
down  and  shorn  of  its  fleece,  so  that  at  last,  when 
the  moment  of  death  arrives,  it  permits  itself  to  be 
bound  quietly,  believing  the  occasion  to  be  that  of 
another  shearing,  and  resigns  its  throat  to  the  knife. 

No  sooner  was  he  secure  in  the  succession  to  his 
own  kingdom  than  Mahmud  looked  towards  India. 
In  1002,  when  Ethelred  was  massacring  the  Danes 
in  England,  Mahmud  was  returning  home  from  a 
massacre  of  Hindoos,  and  his  first  invasion  of  India. 
During  successive  expeditions  he  acquired  enormous 
booty,  and  extended  his  kingdom  in  all  directions, 
taking  Samarcand  and  Bokhara,  then  the  most 
celebrated  cities  in  Central  Asia,  capturing  Kanouj, 
upon  the  Ganges,  and  defeating  the  Rajah  of  Lahore. 
But  in  1030  he  yielded  his  body  to  death  and  his 
soul  to  immortality,  after  an  inspection  of  all  his 
great  possessions,  of  which  he  gave  away  nothing, 
so  that  the  poet  Sadi  tells  of  one  who  saw  him  long 
after  his  death  in  a  dream,  his  body  bereft  of  flesh, 
but  the  eye  of  covetousness  burning  brightly  in  the 
sunken  socket. 

In  Mahmud's  kingdom,  while  the  population  was 
chiefly  Persian,  the  administration  was  chiefly  Turk- 
ish, and  his  authority  in  India  was  vague  and  ill- 
defined.  Of  his  successors,  one  caused  the  fables 
of  Pilpay,  the  Anwar-i-Soheili,  to  be  translated  into 
Persian,  thereby  causing  their  dissemination  over 
most  parts  of  the  world.  His  dynasty  ended  in  1186 

14 


EARLY    HISTORY 

and  the  house  of  Ghor,  which  succeeded,  produced 
a  conqueror  in  Mohammed,  who,  imitating  the  exam- 
ple of  Mahmud,  made  war  upon  the  Indian  rajahs. 
He  was  assassinated  in  1206,  whereupon  one  of  his 
Turkish  slaves,  Kutub,  of  the  Kutub  Minor,  made 
himself  independent  at  Delhi,  and  died  from  a  fall 
at  polo  in  1210.  Other  slave  kings  ruled  over  Delhi 
till  1288,  during  which  period  the  Moguls,  under 
Genghis  Khan,  came  to  the  banks  of  the  Indus, 
Sind  was  permanently  subjected  to  Mohammedan 
rule,  and  Behar  and  Bengal  were  added  to  the  crown 
of  Delhi.  In  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century 
the  court  at  this  capital  was  the  only  Mohammedan 
court  not  overthrown  by  the  Moguls,  and  it  became 
a  place  of  refuge  for  the  many  princes  expelled  from 
their  thrones  by  Genghis  Khan.  One  of  these  kings, 
Ghiyas-ud-din,  was  a  patron  of  letters,  and  a  friend 
of  the  poet  Sadi.  Among  other  wise  sayings  of  his 
is  this:  "that  it  is  better  for  a  king  to  be  obstinate 
than  vacillating,  as  in  the  first  case  he  might  chance 
to  be  right,  but  in  the  latter  he  is  sure  to  be  wrong. " 
The  Tartar  house  of  Khilji  now  reigned  at  Delhi 
(1288-1320),  and  of  its  kings  one,  Ala-ud-din,  repulsed 
the  Moguls,  and  conquered  the  Deccan  and  Mala- 
bar. Next  came  the  house  of  Tughlak  (1321-1414), 
founded,  like  many  another  royal  family,  by  a  suc- 
cessful general.  Firuz  Tughlak  lost  Bengal  and  the 
Deccan,  but  he  constructed  the  still  existing  Karnal 
canal,  abolished  all  petty  and  vexatious  taxes,  and 
died  in  1388,  leaving  behind  him  an  enviable  repu- 
tation. His  successors  lost  other  provinces  and  in 

15 


INDIA 

1398  Timour  the  Tartar,  commonly  called  Tamer- 
lane, after  conquering  Persia  and  Transoxiana  and 
invading  Georgia,  Mesopotamia,  and  Russia,  was 
proclaimed  Emperor  of  India.  Genghis  Khan  was 
a  Mongol,  but  his  army  was  chiefly  comprised  of 
Turks,  and  when  he  died,  in  1227,  he  had  overthrown 
all  the  independent  kingdoms  of  Tartary,  and 
taken  Northern  China,  Khorassan,  and  Transoxiana. 
Timour  himself  was  a  Turk  though  he  revived  the 
Tartar,  Mongol,  or  Mogul  empire.  He  annexed  Persia 
and  reduced  Turkestan  to  obedience,  but  within  one 
hundred  years  from  his  death,  in  1405,  Persia  and 
Transoxiana  were  overrun  by  nomad  Turkomans, 
and  his  descendant,  Babar,  flying  from  the  Uzbegs, 
founded  the  Mogul  Empire  in  India.  Timour  en- 
tered the  country  in  which  his  descendant  was  to 
found  the  greatest  of  its  Oriental  dynasties  by  way 
of  Cabul,  took  Delhi,  from  which  Mohammed  Tugh- 
lak  had  fled,  and  slaughtered  100,000  prisoners.  He 
cared  little  for  the  consolidation  of  his  conquest, 
and  left  it  a  prey  to  disorder.  From  1414  the  Sey- 
yids  ruled  as  lieutenants  of  Timour's  dynasty,  and 
when  the  Lodis  succeeded,  in  1450,  they  held  the 
Punjaub  and  Delhi,  other  provinces  having  become 
independent  during  the  anarchy  which  followed  upon 
the  invasion  of  Timour.  Little  indeed  is  known 
of  the  course  of  events  in  India  during  the  century 
which  preceded  the  accession  of  Babar,  a  period 
remarkable  in  the  world's  history  for  the  termina- 
tion of  the  domination  of  the  Moors  in  Spain  (1491), 
the  discovery  of  America  by  Columbus  (1492),  the 

16 


EARLY    HISTORY 

arrival  of  the  Portuguese  in  India  by  way  of  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII 
in  England,  and  the  conquest  of  Mexico  by  Cortez. 
The  blight  of  the  Mongol  invasion  had  left  India 
completely  cut  off  from  participation  in  world  poli- 
tics and  commerce,  and  there  was  little  for  such 
chroniclers  as  existed  to  relate,  beyond  a  tedious 
procession  of  wars  and  rebellions.  Babar,  then 
ruling  in  Cabul,  invaded  India  during  the  reign  of 
Ibrahim  Lodi,  claiming  the  country  as  part  of  the 
inheritance  of  Tamerlane.  He  destroyed  Lahore  in 
1524;  in  1526  defeated  Ibraham  on  the  fateful  field 
of  Panipat,  and,  in  the  words  of  the  historian  Elphin- 
stone,  "founded  a  line  of  kings,  under  whom  India 
rose  to  the  highest  pitch  of  prosperity,  and  out  of  the 
ruins  of  whose  empire  all  the  existing  states  in  that 
country  are  composed." 

The  latter  statement  is  accurate,  but. if  the  condi- 
tion of  the  people,  rather  than  the  power  and  glory 
of  the  ruler,  be  regarded  as  the  test,  exception  must 
be  taken  to  Elphinstone's  assertion  that  under  the 
Moguls  India  rose  to  the  highest  pitch  of  prosperity. 
It  would  be  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  this  little  work 
to  describe  the  reigns  of  the  great  Moguls,  a  task 
already  performed  by  master  hands.  They  governed 
no  doubt,  as  we  do,  through  the  agency  of  Hindoos, 
in  our  case  and  in  theirs  alike,  chiefly  Brahmins,  and 
the  best  of  them  were  tolerant  and  humane.  In  con- 
temporary writings  and  speeches,  constant  reference 
is  made  to  the  golden  age  of  native  Indian  rule,  and 
though  the  Moguls  were  foreigners,  as  we  are,  they 

17 


INDIA 

were  Asiatics,  and  the  existence  of  a  solidarity  of 
sentiment,  wanting  in  our  case,  may  be  admitted. 
But  by  common  consent  Akbar  was  the  best  and 
most  tolerant  of  the  emperors  of  this  line,  and  no 
subsequent  ruler  had  so  able  a  Hindoo  minister  as 
Todar  Mai.  Yet  it  was  Akbar  who  laid  it  down,  as 
the  governing  principle  of  revenue  administration, 
"that  there  shall  be  left  for  every  man  as  much  as 
he  requires  for  his  own  support  till  the  next  crop  be 
reaped,  and  for  that  of  his  family  and  for  seed.  Thus 
much  shall  be  left  to  him,  what  remains  is  the  land- 
tax.  "  Aurangzeb,  who  collected  nothing  south  of  the 
Vindhya  Mountains,  in  1707  obtained  £38,000,000 
land  revenue,  and  a  total  revenue  of  £80,000,000, 
while  the  English  collect  but  £84,000,000  total, 
and  under  £20,000,000  land  revenue  from  their  im- 
mensely larger  territories.  The  accomplished  Orient- 
alist, Mr.  Irvine,  has  just  published  a  translation  of 
the  "Storia  do  Mogor"  by  Niccolai  Manucci,  who 
lived  between  1653  and  1708  with  Prince  Dara 
Shekoh  and  Aurangzeb.  No  better  witness  exists, 
and  Manucci  tells  us  that  every  time  a  general  won  a 
victory  the  heads  of  villagers  were  sent  as  booty  to 
Agra,  and  after  twenty-four  hours  were  deposited 
along  the  highway  in  pillars  built  for  the  purpose, 
each  to  accommodate  a  hundred  heads.  Aurang- 
zeb was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  powerful  of  his 
line,  which  produced  many  great  men,  but  Manucci 
sums  up  his  reign  by  saying:  "in  no  part  of  his 
Empire  was  there  any  justice,  no  one  thought  of 
anything  but  how  to  plunder,  the  revenue  was  col- 

18 


EARLY    HISTORY 

lected  by  violence,  and  no  remissions  were  allowed 
for  loss  of  crops."  In  a  subsequent  chapter  I  will 
endeavour  to  describe  the  land  revenue  system  now 
in  force  in  India,  but  it  is  impossible  to  pass  by 
Elphinstone's  statement,  capable  as  it  is  of  such 
serious  misconstruction,  and  refuted  as  it  is  by  the 
best  contemporary  witness.  The  Great  Moguls  gov- 
erned the  greater  part  of  India  for  two  hundred 
years  from  1526,  and  were  nominal  emperors  till 
the  mutiny  of  1857.  Manucci  in  no  way  confirms 
the  popular  belief  that  this  was  the  golden  age. 
Indeed  he  says:  "In  these  days  everybody's  thought 
is  to  steal,  and  whatever  happens  it  rarely  reaches 
the  ears  of  the  king,  the  orders  coming  from  whom 
his  officers  do  not  obey.  Those  who  are  the  most 
distant  from  the  court  suffer  most. "  He  relates  too 
an  anecdote  of  a  Portuguese  he  knew,  who  preferred 
death  to  becoming  a  Mohammedan,  which  throws  an 
interesting  light  on  contemporary  Christianity,  and 
adds:  "It  is  now  forty-eight  years  that  I  have  been  in 
India,  yet  never  have  I  seen  a  Mohammedan  become 
a  Christian.  I  have  seen  on  the  Coromandel  coast 
and  in  Bengal  a  few  Malabaris  and  Bengalis,  poverty- 
stricken  Hindoos,  become  Christians,  but  it  was 
from  compulsion  of  hunger,  or  to  get  married  to 
some  Christian.  Even  then  they  never  refrained 
from  Hindoo  practices."  As  to  the  justice  of  the 
Great  Moguls,  Aurangzeb,  starting  to  wage  war 
against  the  Deccani  kings  of  Bijapur  and  Golconda, 
gave  orders  that  eighty  men  should  be  bound  and 
beheaded  in  a  kneeling  position  on  either  side  of  the 

19 


INDIA 

route  he  would  traverse;  which  slaughter  of  innocent 
peasants  was  by  way  of  sacrifice  and  prayer  for 
success  in  his  enterprise.  The  founder  of  the  Mogul 
dynasty,  Babar,  fortunately  bequeathed  to  posterity 
the  memoirs  of  his  adventurous  life  written  in  the 
Turkish  language.  His  father  was  fifth  in  descent 
from  Tamerlane.  He  was,  therefore,  a  Turk,  though 
his  mother  was  a  Mogul,  a  race  of  which  he  himself 
speaks  with  contempt  in  his  memoirs,  but  the  Indians 
use  this  generic  term  for  a  Mohammedan  who  enters 
India  from  beyond  Afghanistan.  Babar,  a  brave, 
simple,  and  pleasure-loving  monarch,  compelled  all 
the  Mohammedan  princes  in  India  to  acknowledge 
his  supremacy,  and  was  fighting  for  the  faith  against 
the  Hindoos  in  the  year  1534,  which  saw  the  victory 
of  the  Protestant  over  the  Roman  Catholic  religion 
in  England.  He  was  defeated  in  Buxar  by  one  of 
his  own  lieutenants,  the  Governor  of  Behar  and 
Bengal,  and  was  obliged  in  his  flight  to  cross  the 
Ganges  on  an  inflated  skin.  When  he  reached 
Omerkote,  with  only  seven  attendants,  his  Queen 
gave  birth  to  the  illustrious  Akbar,  the  greatest  of 
all  the  great  Moguls.  The  revolting  Governor,  Sher 
Shah,  built  caravanserais,  wells,  and  avenues  from 
Bengal  to  the  Indus,  and  of  his  second  son,  who 
succeeded  him,  it  was  said:  "Empire  is  no  man's 
inheritance,  but  belongs  to  him  who  hath  the  longest 
sword."  The  second  son's  sword  was  long  enough 
to  enable  the  wearer  to  supplant  his  eldest  brother, 
but  was  not  long  enough  to  maintain  his  kingdom, 
and  the  son  and  successor  of  Babar,  Humayun,  who 

20 


EARLY    HISTORY 

died  just  after  his  return  to  India,  left  his  preca- 
rious inheritance,  including  Bengal,  to  Akbar,  then  a 
youth  of  thirteen  years,  whose  minister,  Bairam, 
defeated  the  rebellious  General  Hemu  in  1556  at 
Panipat,  on  which  field  the  fate  of  India  has  several 
times  been  decided.  Practically  the  whole  of  India 
became  more  or  less  subject  to  Akbar,  though  this 
statement  could  not  have  been  made  with  any 
approach  to  truth  of  any  one  of  his  predecessors. 
The  population  of  the  conquered  realms  was  made 
up  of  the  aborigines,  of  Scythians  and  Tartars,  and 
of  the  races  who  invaded  the  country  from  the 
north  and  are  commonly  called  Aryans.  Buddhism 
was  the  centripetal  force  which  had  to  some  extent 
welded  together  this  loose,  amorphous  mass,  but  in 
the  seventh  century  Brahminism  had  revived,  and  in 
the  ninth  it  had  triumphed.  In  its  present  aspect 
it  represents  the  union  of  the  Vedic  faith  of  the  orig- 
inal Brahmins  with  Buddhism,  and  with  the  rude 
and  elementary  superstitions  of  the  aboriginal  tribes. 
Brahmin  pantheism  is  capable  of  including  every- 
thing, and  would  before  now  probably  have  ab- 
sorbed the  Christian  converts  but  for  their  rejection 
of  caste.  To  this  day,  the  majority  of  the  people  of 
India  are  animists  —  animism  being  that  form  of 
faith  which  used  to  be  called  fetichism,  or  the 
worship  of  tangible  and  inanimate  objects,  in  the 
belief  that  they  are  possessed  of  some  mysterious 
power.  South  of  the  Vindhya  range,  the  boundary 
between  Hindustan  and  the  Deccan,  were  three 
great  Hindoo  kingdoms,  with  their  capitals,  Mysore, 


INDIA 

Tanjore,  and  Madura.  The  Hindoo  kingdom  of 
Vizayanagar  lasted  from  1118  till  1565,  and  disputed 
the  hegemony  of  the  Deccan  with  the  southern 
Mohammedan  kingdoms.  In  the  reign  of  Moham- 
med Tughlak,  a  contemporary  of  Richard  II  of 
England  and  of  Philip  de  Valois  of  France,  the  em- 
pire of  Delhi  extended  from  the  Himalayas  and  the 
Indus  on  the  north-west  and  north-east,  to  the  sea  on 
the  east  and  west,  though  much  of  Rajputana  was 
independent.  Between  1489  and  1688  there  were 
five  Mohammedan  states  in  the  Deccan,  formed  out 
of  the  fragments  of  the  Bahmani  kingdom,  with 
their  respective  capitals:  Bejapur,  Golconda,  Ahmed- 
nugger,  Elichpur,  and  Bedi;  and  the  ruins  of  the  first- 
named  city  eloquently  attest  the  greatness  of  the 
former  kingdom.  They  include  masterpieces  of  Sara- 
cenic architecture,  and  the  largest  dome  in  the  world, 
which  covers  an  area  of  18,000  square  feet  unin- 
terrupted by  supports.  It  was  here  that  Ferishta 
resided  and  completed  his  history,  a  valuable  mine 
for  the  later  Indian  historian,  but  one  in  which 
writers  of  the  anti-British  school  do  not  care  to  dig. 
Besides  the  Hindoo  and  Mohammedan  kingdoms,  to 
which  brief  reference  has  been  made,  there  remained 
the  Rajput  States  which  had  never  been  conquered. 
Insufficient  as  are  the  materials  for  writing  Indian 
history,  there  are,  thanks  to  the  Hakluyt  Society, 
publications  which  give  some  idea  of  the  internal 
state  of  the  country  in  the  fifteenth  and  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  centuries.  The  commercial 
intercourse,  which  had  been  carried  on  between 


EARLY    HISTORY 

India  and  Rome  through  the  Red  Sea,  hardly  sur- 
vived the  division  of  the  Roman  Empire  into  east 
and  west,  when  it  was  supplanted  by  trade  with 
Constantinople  carried  through  Persia  by  caravan. 
The  Arab  conquests  next  interrupted  intercourse 
between  India  and  the  Byzantine  Empire,  and  in 
the  tenth  century  intercourse  was  reopened  with 
Venice  through  Egypt,  and  in  the  eleventh  century 
the  republics  of  Genoa  and  Venice,  consequent  upon 
the  irruptions  of  the  Turks  into  Syria  and  Palestine, 
developed  considerable  commerce  with  India.  This 
trade  subsequently  became  a  Venetian  monopoly, 
till  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  Por- 
tuguese in  turn  profited  by  the  discovery  of  America 
and  the  rounding  of  the  Cape. 

Nikitin,  a  Russian  traveller  of  1470,  dwelt  upon 
the  contrast  between  the  brilliance  of  the  court  and 
the  poverty  of  the  people  in  the  Deccan.  Babosa,  a 
Portuguese,  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, described  the  people  of  Gujerat  as  prosperous 
and  well-found.  He  speaks  of  the  roofed  and  tiled 
houses  of  the  town,  of  the  trade  in  cloth,  of  the  silk 
manufactures  of  Bombay,  and  of  the  dealings  of  the 
west  coast  in  cocoa  and  areca  nuts,  spices  and  drugs; 
nor  is  his  account  of  the  Malabar  coast,  that  fertile 
and  pleasant  land,  any  less  satisfactory. 

It  seems  that  the  Mohammedan  kings  of  the 
time  were  accessible  to  their  subjects,  and  personal 
in  their  rule,  though  practically  absolute  authority 
was  delegated  to  governors  of  provinces.  The  army 
was  composed  of  levies,  supplied  fully  equipped  by 

23 


INDIA 

local  chiefs,  and  by  individual  soldiers  who  served 
for  hire.  The  Hindoos  had  to  pay  the  poll-tax,  but 
they  were  generally  employed  in  the  administration 
and  sometimes  as  generals.  The  Emperor  Babar 
in  his  memoirs  says  that  the  revenue  officials,  mer- 
chants, and  work-people  were  all  Hindoos,  and  much 
the  same  might  be  said  at  the  present  day,  for 
the  actual  government  is  generally  in  the  hands  of 
Brahmins,  who  are  supervised  by  a  handful  of  civil 
servants  who  form  a  corps  d?  elite.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  Mohammedan  conquerors  of  India 
soon  lost  their  fierce  proselytising  zeal  and  intoler- 
ance, and  treated  the  Hindoos  with  leniency  and 
toleration.  They  coined  silver  and  gold  and  Akbar 
fixed  the  rupee  at  very  much  its  present  weight. 
Before  his  day  the  Indian  Mohammedans  had 
adopted  the  muslin  robe  and  slippers  which  they  now 
wear,  and  their  character  as  well  as  their  costume 
has  changed,  since  they  left  the  uplands  of  Central 
Asia  for  the  river  plains  of  Hindustan,  whence  some 
as  a  ruling  class  migrated  to  the  "wide  stony  wolds 
of  the  Deccan. "  Akbar  was  cut  off  from  the  Afghan 
base  which  his  predecessors  had  possessed,  and 
partly  on  this  account,  and  partly,  no  doubt,  from 
statesmanship,  he  determined  to  pursue  a  policy 
of  toleration  and  conciliation.  The  contemporary 
chronicle  known  as  the  Akbarnama  of  Abul  Fazl, 
the  eminent  minister,  throws  an  interesting  light 
upon  the  Emperor's  methods  of  administration. 
One  day  he  came  upon  two  bodies  of  Hindoos,  who 
were  quarrelling  about  the  possession  of  a  sacred 

24 


EARLY    HISTORY 

bathing  place.  He  first  of  all  endeavoured  to  effect 
a  friendly  settlement,  and  finding  this  impossible 
told  them  to  fight  it  out,  and  saw  fair  play.  Had 
this  solution  been  adopted  during  the  recent  dis- 
turbances in  eastern  Bengal,  little  would  have  been 
heard  of  the  Hindoo  case,  for  the  Mohammedans 
would  have  easily  settled  all  disputes  in  their  own 
favour.  Akbar  tried  alternately  violence  and  con- 
ciliation in  order  to  subjugate  the  Rajput  States, 
which  was  never  completely  effected.  He  took  Gu- 
jerat,  recovered  Bengal  and  Behar,  annexed  Cash- 
mere, and  tried,  with  indifferent  success,  to  subdue 
Afghanistan.  This  was  the  first  war  made  by  a 
ruler  of  Hindustan  against  that  country.  Sind  was 
next  subdued  and  Kandahar  recovered,  so  that 
the  Mogul  Empire  now  extended  from  Afghanistan 
across  the  whole  of  India  north  of  the  Vindhya 
Mountains,  while  the  Deccan  proved  an  insoluble 
problem.  Those  breezy  uplands  bred  heroines,  and 
Chand  Bibi  of  Ahmednugger  fired  copper,  silver,  and 
gold  coins  at  the  Moguls,  when  iron  was  exhausted, 
and  was  firing  away  the  Crown  jewels  when  her 
valorous  soul  was  quenched,  a  worthy  prototype 
of  the  Ranee  of  Jhansi.  Akbar  returned  to  Agra 
from  this  campaign  in  1601  —  the  year  in  which  the 
first  East  India  Company  was  founded,  and  in  which 
the  first  English  ships  reached  India  —  and  in  1605 
he  died.  He  dreamt  of  an  eclectic  religion,  embra- 
cing all  that  was  best  in  all  the  chief  faiths  of  his 
own  generation.  Probably  he  was  for  the  most  part 
sincere,  possibly,  like  his  contemporary,  Henry  IV 

25 


INDIA 

of  France,  who  thought  Paris  worth  a  Mass,  his 
religion  was  subservient  to  his  policy  of  concilia- 
tion. He  discouraged  suttee  and  child  marriage,  and 
allowed  Hindoo  widows  to  marry  again,  thus  antici- 
pating some  of  the  reforms  effected  by  the  English. 
His  religious  system  died  with  him.  His  revenue 
system  was  borrowed  from  that  of  Sher  Shah,  the 
Afghan  king  of  Delhi,  who  died  in  1545,  a  great 
monarch,  who  said  that  his  life  was  not  long  enough 
to  allow  of  his  doing  sufficient  good  to  his  people. 
All  the  cultivable  lands  in  the  Empire  were  meas- 
ured and  divided  into  three  classes  according  to 
their  fertility,  the  demand  of  the  State  being  fixed 
at  one-third  of  the  gross  produce,  as  against  a  rough 
general  average  of  one-fourteenth  which  we  get. 
Settlements  were  thus  effected  which  lasted  for  ten 
years  as  against  thirty  of  our  present  system,  and 
measurements  and  classifications  were  recorded  in 
the  village  accounts,  just  as  they  now  are.  Akbar's 
Dewan  was  the  famous  Todar  Mai,  and  his  finance 
minister  the  hardly  less  celebrated  Abul  Fazl.  Sir 
William  Hunter  concluded  that  the  revenue  collected 
from  a  part  of  India  by  the  Great  Mogul  ex- 
ceeded that  received  by  the  British  from  their  more 
extended  and  far  greater  Empire,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  land-tax  of  the  present  day  is,  on 
an  average,  less  than  a  quarter  of  what  was  exacted 
by  Akbar.  There  were  then  no  police  except  the 
hereditary  village  watchmen,  and  the  chief  land- 
owners were  held  responsible  for  the  protection 
of  life  and  property.  The  rural  watchmen  usually 

26 


EARLY    HISTORY 

belonged  to  the  robber  class,  but  that  was  the  case 
until  late  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  extreme 
south  of  India,  where  the  system,  now  abandoned, 
worked  fairly  well.  The  army  consisted  chiefly  of 
cavalry,  and  the  troopers  were  men  of  the  yeoman 
class,  who  supplied  their  own  horses  and  weapons. 
This  arrangement  practically  survives  in  the  native 
cavalry  regiments  to  the  present  day.  The  infantry 
of  the  line  were  paid  six  rupees  a  month,  and,  in 
theory  at  any  rate,  all  males  capable  of  bearing  arms 
were  liable  to  service.  Akbar's  successor,  Jahangir, 
regarded  his  wife  as  a  colleague  upon  the  throne,  and 
they  reigned  in  a  fashion  not  unlike  that  of  Justin- 
ian and  Theodora,  her  name  being  engraved  on  the 
coins  with  that  of  the  Emperor.  It  was  in  this  reign, 
in  the  year  1616  that  Sir  Thomas  Roe  arrived  as 
ambassador  of  James  I,  who  sent  him  in  the  hope 
of  obtaining  more  favourable  terms  for  British  trade 
at  Surat,  and  on  the  west  coast  of  India,  where  silk, 
spice,  pepper,  precious  stones,  and  cotton  were 
bartered  in  exchange  for  knives  and  broadcloth. 
When  Jahangir  died,  in  1627,  his  dominions  were 
practically  coterminous  with  those  of  Akbar,  for  his 
endeavours  to  conquer  the  Deccan  were  fruitless. 

His  successor,  Shah  Jehan,  a  contemporary  during 
the  long  reign  of  Charles  I  and  Cromwell,  and  of 
Louis  XIII  and  Louis  XIV,  conducted  the  usual 
wars,  with  less  than  the  usual  unsuccess  in  the 
Deccan,  into  which  he  introduced  the  revenue  sys- 
tem of  Todar  Mai.  During  the  reign  of  Shah  Jehan, 
the  Mogul  Empire  reached  its  zenith,  but  Elphin- 

27 


INDIA 

stone,  than  whom  no  man  was  more  competent  to 
form  an  opinion,  considers  that  the  condition  of  the 
people  must  have  been  worse  than  in  the  most 
badly  governed  state  in  modern  Europe.  It  was 
this  emperor  who  rebuilt  and  adorned  Delhi,  con- 
structing the  Great  Mosque,  the  palace,  the  little 
Musjid,  and  the  Taj  Mahal.  No  sooner  was  Aurang- 
zeb  formally  installed  upon  his  throne,  in  the  year  of 
the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts  in  England,  than  war 
broke  out  between  Bejapur  and  the;  Mahrattas,  who 
were  a  race  of  cultivators  living  in  the  hills  of  Goa 
and  Surat,  and  the  western  extremity  of  the  Deccan 
plateau.  Sivaji,  the  national  hero,  began  life  as 
a  brigand,  and  little  was  heard  of  the  Mahrattas 
till  his  day,  though  Ferishta  records  that  as  early 
as  1485  the  Mohammedan  kings  of  the  Deccan  had 
already  enlisted  these  hardy  hillmen  in  their  service. 
In  1648  Sivaji  had  acquired  possession  of  several 
fortresses  belonging  to  Bejapur,  as  a  result  of  his 
wars  with  the  ruler  of  which  kingdom  he  was  placed 
in  possession  of  considerable  territory;  and  of  Indian 
chiefs  he  first  realised  that  infantry  was  of  greater 
importance  than  cavalry.  Aurangzeb  had  made 
the  fatal  mistake  of  reducing  the  Mohammedan  king- 
doms of  the  Deccan  instead  of  invoking  their  aid 
against  the  rising  strength  of  the  Mahrattas.  The 
latter  continued  to  grow  in  power,  and  soon  the 
states  of  Bejapur  and  Golconda  commenced  to  pay 
tribute  to  Sivaji,  who  presently  arrogated  to  himself 
the  right  to  levy  the  famous  chauth,  or  quarter  of  the 
revenue,  as  the  price  of  security  against  attacks  by 

28 


EARLY   HISTORY 

his  followers.  Another  false  step  taken  by  Aurang- 
zeb  was  the  revival  of  the  obnoxious  poll-tax  levied 
on  Hindoos,  and,  departing  from  all  the  wise  prece- 
dents of  his  line,  he  forbade  the  entertainment  of 
Hindoos  in  the  Government  service.  The  reimposi- 
tion  of  the  tax  on  infidels  and  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes  were  two  events  of  equal  import  to 
the  Mogul  and  French  monarchies.  The  interests 
of  the  Rajputs  now  became  identical  with  those  of  the 
Mahrattas,  and  the  latter  bandits  became  champions 
of  the  Hindoo  religion  and  nationality.  All  Rajpu- 
tana  was  in  a  blaze,  and  the  star  of  Sivaji  was  ever 
in  the  ascendant  in  the  south,  where  the  Moham- 
medan kings  of  the  Deccan  called  him  in  to  aid  them 
to  maintain  their  independence  against  Aurangzeb. 
In  1683  the  Emperor  left  Delhi,  never  to  return 
before  his  death  in  1707,  the  intervening  period  being 
spent  in  vain  efforts  to  reduce  the  Deccan  to  submis- 
sion. His  last  years  were  clouded  by  the  intrigues 
of  his  sons,  as  well  as  by  the  failure  of  his  arms, 
and  when  he  died,  in  the  eighty-ninth  year  of  his 
life,  and  the  fiftieth  of  his  reign,  he  said:  "Every- 
where I  see  nothing  but  God.  I  have  committed 
many  crimes,  and  know  not  how  I  shall  be  pun- 
ished. The  death  agony  presses  on  one,  I  am  going. 
Come  what  may  I  have  launched  my  vessel  on  the 
waves.  Farewell,  farewell."  Elphinstone  says  of 
him  that  "he  would  indeed  have  been  a  good  and 
great  king  had  he  not  had  a  heart  cold,  calculating, 
and  a  stranger  to  all  generous  and  ennobling  im- 
pulses." His  land  revenue  reached  thirty-eight  and 

29 


INDIA 

one-half  million  sterling,  and  his  total  income  was 
seventy -seven  and  one-half  millions.  The  usual  frat- 
ricidal strife  followed  upon  his  death,  and  resulted 
in  the  ultimate  victory  of  Shah  Alam,  the  eldest  son, 
whose  Viceroy  in  the  Deccan  now  openly  paid  chauth 
to  the  Mahrattas.  The  new  Emperor  first  offered 
the  Rajputs  practical  independence  in  return  for 
peace,  and  turned  his  own  attention  to  the  Sikhs. 
This  religious  sect,  afterwards  so  famous  in  Indian 
history,  was  founded  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century  by  Nanak,  who  recognised  no  distinction 
of  caste,  but  preached  universal  toleration,  and  the 
unity  of  the  Godhead.  Since  the  death  of  the  tol- 
erant Akbar  they  had  been  persecuted,  and  in  1675 
their  Guru,  or  leader,  created  a  religious  and  mili- 
tary commonwealth,  every  member  of  which  was  a 
soldier.  None  were  allowed  to  shave,  and  each  and 
every  one  was  bound  to  carry  cold  steel  about 
his  person  —  of  which  rule  of  conduct  the  quoit 
in  the  turban  is  now  the  outward  and  visible  sign. 
The  Sikhs  respect  the  Brahmins,  and  forbid  the 
slaughter  of  cattle,  but  their  resemblance  to  the  orth- 
odox Hindoo  in  other  respects  is  small,  and  they 
have  acquired  a  very  distinctive  character.  Farokh- 
sir  was  a  prince  of  no  great  merit,  but  he  fought  and 
defeated  the  Sikhs,  whose  sectaries  he  treated  with 
the  utmost  barbarity.  The  Deccan  in  his  reign  had 
now  become  almost  independent  under  its  Viceroys 
or  Nizams,  who  acknowledged  the  Mahratta  sov- 
ereignty, and  duly  paid  their  chauth  or  tribute.  The 
real  governors  of  the  Empire  were  the  Seyyids,  two 

30 


EARLY    HISTORY 

brothers  who  were  king-makers,  but  when  their 
creature,  the  king,  tired  of  them,  the  Nizam  of  the 
Deccan  became  chief  minister,  while  the  power  of 
the  Mahrattas  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  family  of 
Brahmin  village  accountants  in  the  Konkan.  Bal- 
aji  Visvanath  became  their  Peshwa  or  minister,  and 
he  endeavoured  to  realise,  as  a  regular  tribute  and 
revenue,  one-quarter  of  the  revenue,  as  settled  by 
Todar  Mai,  of  the  Mogul  Empire.  During  its 
decline  and  fall,  however,  nothing  like  this  amount 
was  collected,  and  Mogul  revenue  and  Mahratta 
chauth  alike  were  levied  by  force  and  not  according 
to  law.  The  different  heads  of  account  in  one  and 
the  same  area  were  collected  by  different  agencies, 
in  order  to  prevent  any  one  authority  from  becom- 
ing independent  of  the  central  power  at  Delhi,  an 
object  which,  none  the  less,  the  arrangement  failed 
to  secure.  One  result,  however,  of  this  system  was 
of  a  permanent  character,  for  the  intricacy  of  the 
accounts  led  to  the  universal  use  of  Brahmin  account- 
ants, thereby  increasing  the  ascendency  of  the  caste, 
always  so  powerful  in  India,  to  which  the  family 
of  the  Peshwa  belonged.  To  Balaji  succeeded  Baji 
Rao,  who  first  invaded  the  northern  provinces  of  the 
tottering  empire,  saying  "let  us  strike  the  withered 
trunk,  and  the  branches  will  fall  of  their  own  accord." 
At  this  period  rose  to  eminence  the  families  of  the 
Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  Holkar  of  Indore,  and  the  Sind- 
hias  of  Gwalior,  who  were  lieutenants  of  the  Peshwa 
Baji-Rao.  It  was  now  evident  that  any  effort  to 
oppose  the  Mahrattas  would  be  fruitless,  and  the 

31 


INDIA 

Nizam  therefore  joined  them  in  self -aggrandisement 
at  the  expense  of  the  empire,  the  breaking  up  of 
which  was  precipitated  by  the  invasion  of  Nadir 
Shah.  The  eastern  portion  of  the  tableland  of 
Herat  formed  a  kind  of  neutral  territory  between 
the  Persian  and  the  Mogul  Empires,  and  the  Safavi 
Shah  Hosain  was  involved  in  warfare  with  the 
Ghiljis,  who  occupied  the  western  portion  of  that 
tableland.  The  tribesmen,  however,  invaded  and 
took  Ispahan,  whereupon  Tahmasp,  the^/son  of 
Hosain,  invoked  the  aid  of  Nadir  Kuli,  a  renowned 
freebooter  of  that  day,  who,  instead  of  placing 
Tahmasp  upon  the  throne  of  Persia,  himself,  in  1736, 
assumed  the  title  of  Shah-in-Shah,  to  which,  by  the 
conquest  of  Balkh  and  Bokhara,  he  gave  an  actual- 
ity that  lofty  designation  had  long  lacked.  The 
distracted  empire  of  the  Moguls  was  an  irresistible 
temptation  to  such  a  warrior,  and,  a  pretext  for 
attack  being  soon  found,  he  took  Cabul,  and  as 
the  Emperor  had  omitted  to  pay  to  the  Afghans 
the  subsidies  they  claimed,  he  passed  unobstructed 
through  the  mountains,  crossed  the  Indus,  defeated 
the  Imperial  troops  at  Kurnal  in  February,  1739, 
and  gave  Delhi  over  to  fire  and  sword.  Almost 
immediately,  however,  he  departed  home  with  all 
the  booty  he  could  obtain,  and  with  a  treaty  in  his 
pocket  whereby  the  Emperor  relinquished  all  claim 
to  everything  west  of  the  Indus.  Nine  years  later 
he  was  assassinated,  in  consequence  of  his  mad 
endeavours  to  suppress  the  Shiyya  doctrines,  which 
the  Persians  since  the  Mohammedan  conquest  ever 

32 


EARLY    HISTORY 

have,  and  still  do,  profess.  When  Nadir  Shah  had 
left,  the  Mahrattas  again  began  to  harry  the  pros- 
trate empire.  Balaji  Baji  succeeded  Baji  as  third 
Peshwa,  but  the  curse  of  domestic  dissension  now 
fell  in  turn  upon  the  Mahrattas,  and  the  French 
appeared  for  the  first  time  to  aid  the  Nizam's  son, 
Salabat  Jung,  to  oppose  them.  Ahmed  Khan,  after- 
wards Ahmed  Shah,  of  the  Durani  tribe,  succeeded 
to  the  authority  of  Nadir  Shah  in  Khorassan,  and 
the  country  between  the  Indus  and  the  Persian  fron- 
tier in  1748,  and  in  the  same  year  a  prince  of  the 
same  name  succeeded  to  the  Mogul  throne,  only 
to  make  way  almost  immediately  for  Alamgir,  from 
whose  feeble  grasp  Ahmed  Shah  Durani  wrested 
Delhi,  leaving  behind  him  a  Rohilla  chieftain  in 
command,  who  was  presently  expelled,  with  the  aid 
of  the  Peshwa's  brother,  Ragoba,  who  seized  Lahore 
and  threatened  Oudh.  At  this  juncture,  Ahmed 
Shah  Durani  for  the  fourth  time  invaded  the  Pun- 
jaub,  and  defeated  the  Mahrattas  under  Sindhia 
and  Holkar.  It  was  not  against  the  Mogul  emperor 
that  the  Afghan  king  made  war,  but  against  the 
Mahrattas,  whose  power  was  now,  in  1760,  at  its 
height.  The  whole  of  the  empire,  and  more  of  the 
south  of  India  than  ever  acknowledged  its  authority, 
was  either  part  of,  or  paid  tribute  to,  their  power. 
Their  forces,  estimated  at  about  300,000,  and  the 
Durani  forces  of  100,000,  faced  one  another,  in 
January,  1761,  upon  the  classic  battle-ground  of 
Panipat,  with  the  usual  result  that  the  invaders 
were  victorious.  The  Mahrattas  retired  to  their 

33 


INDIA 

conquests  in  Hindustan,  and  the  dynasties  of  the 
Peshwa  and  the  Mogul  alike  were  overwhelmed  in 
a  common  catastrophe. 

The  Mahrattas  recovered  a  great  deal  of  their 
once  great  power,  but  that  of  the  Moguls  was  finally 
broken,  and  upon  its  fragments  rose  independent 
states,  with  which,  and  with  the  relations  of  the 
Europeans  with  which,  the  history  of  India  from 
this  date  is  chiefly  concerned. 


34 


CHAPTER    II 

LATER   HISTORY 

GEORGE  III  had  sat  upon  the  throne  a  year 
when  the  third  battle  of  Panipat  was 
fought,  and  already,  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
II,  the  East  India  Company,  which  dated  from  the 
reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  had  become  sufficiently 
powerful  to  obtain  a  new  charter,  and  the  cession 
of  Bombay.  Fort  St.  George  had  been  founded 
in  1639,  but  it  was  not  till  1698  that  Aurangzeb 
granted  a  site  upon  the  Hoogly  for  the  occupation 
of  our  traders  in  Bengal.  As  the  Mohammedan  in- 
vaders all  came  by  land,  so  did  the  Europeans  all 
arrive  by  sea.  The  trade  between  India  and  Europe 
which  passed  by  the  Red  Sea  through  Egypt,  and 
paid  heavy  transit  duty  to  the  Sultan,  fired  the  am- 
bition of  the  Portuguese  to  try  and  discover  some 
direct  sea  route  whereby  they  could  avoid  the  tran- 
sit duties,  and  Vasco  da  Gama  doubled  the  Cape 
and  anchored  off  Calicut,  in  1498,  and  returned  to 
Portugal  with  a  letter  for  his  king  from  the  Zamorin. 
Cabral,  in  the  following  year,  quarrelled  with  the 
latter  potentate  and  withdrew  to  Cochin,  the  Rajah 
of  which  state,  true  to  the  traditional  policy  of  his 
house,  received  them  with  kindly  hospitality.  Two 

35 


INDIA 

years  later  Vasco  da  Gama  again  arrived  at  Calicut 
to  avenge  the  treatment  Cabral  had  experienced. 
But  Alfonso  Albuquerque,  "in  whose  presence  the 
sea  trembled,'*  was  the  real  founder  of  the  Portu- 
guese power  in  the  East.  He  captured  Goa,  held 
Ormuz,  and  the  spice  island  of  Malacca,  and  with 
his  dismissal  began  that  decline  which  everywhere 
proceeded  during  the  period  in  which  the  crown  of 
Portugal  was  united  with  that  of  Spain,  from  1580 
to  1666.  The  Mahrattas  took  Bassein,  the  Dutch 
seized  Malacca  and  Ceylon,  and  the  Persians  cap- 
tured Ormuz;  but  it  was  the  Dutch  who  struck 
down  the  Portuguese  monopoly,  their  objective  be- 
ing the  spice  trade  of  the  Eastern  Archipelago.  In 
1620  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  was  founded; 
in  1605  they  expelled  the  Portuguese  from  Amboyna, 
and  in  1619  founded  Batavia.  With  the  exception 
of  the  English,  the  only  other  European  country 
which  owned  land  settlements  in  India  was  Den- 
mark, which  bought  Tranquebar  from  the  Rajah 
of  Tan j  ore,  and  had  another  settlement  at  Ser- 
ampore  on  the  Hoogly.  These  possessions,  which 
became  famous  centres  of  missionary  activity,  were 
sold  to  the  English  in  1845.  Thus  it  happened  that 
the  French  were  the  only  serious  competitors  of 
our  fellow-countrymen,  their  chief  possessions  being 
Chandarnagore  on  the  Hoogly,  and  Pondicherry  on 
the  Coromandel  coast.  In  1746  they  took  from  us 
Madras,  which  was  restored  at  the  peace  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  1748,  but  the  real  fight  for  India  began 
between  Dupleix  and  Clive,  when  the  former  states- 

36 


LATER   HISTORY 

man  endeavoured  to  found  a  French  Empire  by 
intervening  in  the  disputed  succession  to  the  thrones 
of  Hyderabad  and  Arcot,  fragments  of  the  Mogul 
Empire  which  had  become  practically  independent. 
Ten  years  before  the  battle  of  Panipat,  Clive,  by 
his  defence  of  Arcot,  had  made  the  English  name 
feared  and  respected  in  Southern  India,  and  two 
years  before  that  battle,  Coote  had  defeated  the 
Comte  de  Lally  at  Wandewash,  after  which  the 
English  remained  the  masters  of  the  south.  In  Ben- 
gal the  tyranny  of  Suraj-ud-Daula,  and  the  fact 
that  France  and  England  were  at  war  in  Europe,  led 
up  to  the  important  victory,  but  not  great  battle, 
of  Plassey  in  1757,  and  to  the  first  extensive  grant 
of  territory  to  the  English,  which  grant  was  largely 
increased  in  1760  upon  the  deposition  of  the  Nawab 
Mir  Jaffar  of  Bengal.  Subsequently  their  own 
creature,  Mir  Cassim,  endeavoured  to  assert  his 
independence  with  such  aid  as  the  Emperor,  Shah 
Alam,  could  give,  whereupon  the  English  defeated 
him  at  Buxar  in  1764.  Clive,  however,  restored 
Oudh  to  the  Nawab  Vizier,  and  obtained  from  Shah 
Alam,  in  return  for  a  fragment  of  his  empire  which 
was  given  back  to  him,  the  fiscal  administration  of 
Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa,  for  which  provinces 
there  thus  obtained  a  dual  management  till  Warren 
Hastings  abolished  the  system,  and  sold  to  the 
Nabob  of  Oudh  the  territory  which  Clive  had  restored 
to  the  Emperor,  because,  when  the  Mahrattas  seized 
that  potentate  in  1773,  Hastings  considered  that 
the  British  could  neither  pay  territory  nor  tribute, 

37 


INDIA 

either  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  Mahrattas.  The 
power  of  the  latter,  after  the  battle  of  Panipat,  was 
divided  between  the  Peshwa,  the  Bhonsla  Rajahs 
at  Nagpur,  the  Sindhias  at  Gwalior,  the  Holkars  at 
Indore,  and  the  Gaekwars  at  Baroda.  Sindhia  and 
Holkar  restored  Shah  Alam  to  his  throne  in  order  to 
use  such  authority  as  remained  to  this  shadow  of  a 
great  name,  and  they  held  him  prisoner  till  the  sec- 
ond Mahratta  War,  in  1803,  whereby  the  power  of 
Sindhia  and  the  Bhonslas  was  broken,  and  the  Pro- 
tectorate of  the  Empire  was  restored  to  the  British. 
The  third  Mahratta  War  brought  about  the  defeat 
of  Holkar,  and  the  fourth  was  waged  in  1817-1818 
with  the  Peshwa,  when  Poona  was  captured,  and 
Baji  Rao  was  deposed  and  pensioned  at  Bithoor, 
where  he  died,  in  1853,  leaving  no  family,  but  an 
adopted  son,  who  subsequently  became  infamous 
under  the  name  of  Nana  Sahib.  In  1780  and  1790, 
when  the  British  were  engaged  in  war  with  Hyder 
Ali  of  Mysore,  and  his  son  Tippoo,  the  Nizam  and 
the  Mahrattas  co-operated  with  the  English  in 
the  first  war  and  compelled  Tippoo  to  cede  half  his 
dominions,  which  the  allies  divided.  In  1799  he 
was  crushed  by  Lord  Wellesley,  who  also  brought 
under  British  authority  those  fragments  of  Mogul 
and  Mahratta  rule,  the  nawabship  of  Arcot,  and  the 
principality  of  Tanjore.  Not  only  Mysore  and  the 
Mahrattas  engaged  the  English  at  this  time,  but 
the  Pindaris  were  a  sore  trouble  in  the  land.  They 
were  camp-followers  of  the  Mahrattas,  the  flotsam 
and  jetsam  of  distracted  India,  the  debris  of  the 

38 


LATER  HISTORY 

Mogul  Empire,  "who  asked  no  leave  of  king  or 
chief,  as  they  swept  through  Hindustan."  It  cost 
Lord  Hastings  a  regular  campaign  before  he  broke 
them,  in  1817,  in  which  year  also  the  fall  of  the 
Peshwa  led  to  the  constitution  of  the  Bombay  Pres- 
idency, in  somewhat  its  present  form.  The  British 
Government,  however,  while  it  then  became  para- 
mount over  the  greater  part  of  India,  had  yet  to 
fight  against  the  Mohammedan  rulers  of  Afghan- 
istan. 

Upon  the  death,  in  1773,  of  Ahmed  Shah  Durani 
the  usual  wars  and  rebellions  ensued,  but  in  1809  his 
descendant,  Shuja  Shah,  was  seated  upon  the  Afghan 
throne,  and  to  him  the  British  sent  a  mission  in  order 
to  establish  a  defensive  alliance,  with  the  ultimate 
result  that  he  was  ejected  from  Cabul  and  fled  to 
India  for  protection,  while  Dost  Mohammed,  of  the 
Barakzai  family,  made  himself  king  in  his  stead. 
The  creation  of  the  strong  kingdom  of  Runjeet  Singh 
in  the  Punjaub  relieved  India  from  all  fear  of  Afghan 
invasions,  but  Dost  Mohammed  none  the  less  yearned 
to  recover  Peshawar  from  the  Sikhs,  and  since  the 
Viceroy,  Lord  Auckland,  had  no  power  to  gratify 
this  wish,  and  still  more  because  of  the  pressure 
of  Russia  through  Persia  upon  Herat,  the  Viceroy 
decided  to  replace  Dost  Mohammed  by  his  own 
creature  —  the  fugitive  Shah  Shuja,  who  might  fairly 
be  expected  to  carry  out  his  wishes.  The  thing  was 
done  accordingly,  but  the  British  reckoned  without 
the  Afghans,  who,  after  a  sullen  acquiescence  of  two 
years,  killed  Sir  Alexander  Burnes  and  Sir  William 

39 


INDIA 

Macnaghten,  and  annihilated  the  army  of  occupa- 
tion —  a  disaster  which  in  1842  Generals  Pollok  and 
Sale  avenged.  The  administration  of  Lord  Amherst 
(1823-1838),  but  for  the  first  Burmese  War,  whereby 
Assam,  Arakan,  and  Tenasserim  were  ceded  to  the 
Company,  had  been  comparatively  peaceful,  and 
Lord  William  Bentinck,  from  1828  to  1835,  had 
enjoyed  peace  broken  only  by  ten  days'  war,  which 
ended  in  the  annexation  of  the  little  province  of 
Coorg.  Lord  Auckland,  however,  besides  being  in- 
volved in  the  first  Afghan  War,  was  engaged  in  the 
first,  or,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  the  opium,  war 
with  China  (1840-1842),  at  the  conclusion  of  which 
Hong  Kong  was  ceded  to  Britain,  and  Shanghai  and 
other  ports  opened  to  European  trade.  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  (1842-1844)  conquered  Sind,  the  Amirs  of 
which  had  been  unfriendly  during  the  Afghan  War. 
Lord  Hardinge  (1844-1847)  fought  the  hard  fight  of 
the  first  Sikh  War,  as  the  result  of  which  the  coun- 
try between  the  Sutlej  and  the  Ravi  was  annexed 
and  Henry  Lawrence  was  appointed  President  at 
the  court  of  the  youthful  son  of  Runjeet  Singh.  It 
remained  for  Lord  Dalhousie  (1848-1856)  to  annex 
the  rest  of  the  Punjaub,  Oudh,  Satara,  Jhansi,  and 
Nagpur,  and  a  large  part  of  the  present  province 
of  Burma.  In  thus  changing  the  map  of  India  he 
conducted  the  second  Sikh  and  the  second  Burmese 
Wars,  but  he  also  opened  the  first  Indian  rail- 
way, introduced  cheap  postage,  organised  the  public 
works,  constructed  roads  and  canals,  and  inaugurated 
the  educational  system  on  new  and  permanent  lines. 

40 


LATER    HISTORY 

Lord  Canning  declared  war  on  Persia,  which  had 
seized  Herat,  and  forced  the  Shah  to  renounce  all 
claims  on  this  fortress,  or  on  any  part  of  Afghanistan, 
and  fought  the  second  Chinese  War,  as  a  result 
of  which  all  customary  commercial  privileges  were 
conceded  to  England  and  other  European  powers, 
and  to  America.  The  great  event,  however,  of  this 
viceroyalty  —  the  greatest  event  in  our  occupation 
of  India  —  was  the  Sepoy  mutiny,  of  which  the 
immediate  result  was  the  transfer  of  India  from  the 
East  India  Company  to  the  Crown.  There  is  no 
occasion  here  to  relate  the  incidents  of  this  chap- 
ter in  our  history,  but  the  conclusions  of  the  latest 
historian,  Field-Marshal  Sir  Evelyn  Wood,  may 
with  advantage  be  recorded.  He  says  that  revolt 
was  "the  outcome  of  annexations,  and  of  centralisa- 
tion coupled  with  well-meant  but  mistaken  attempts 
to  govern  in  accordance  with  systems  prevailing 
in  the  United  Kingdom  millions  of  Asiatics,  as 
numerous  as  the  peoples  of  Europe,  and  of  as  many 
different  religions."  The  Congress  is  at  the  present 
day,  with  the  aid  of  the  Bengali  Babus,  and  the 
newspapers  they  control,  urging  us  to  persevere  in 
the  very  attempts  to  which  Sir  Evelyn  Wood,  with 
so  much  reason,  attributes  in  no  small  measure 
the  greatest  disaster  which  has  occurred  during  our 
domination  in  India. 

The  tangled  web  of  our  relations  with  Afghan- 
istan received  another  twist  when  Lord  Lawrence 
(1864-1868)  acknowledged  Sher  AH,  the  son  of 
Dost  Mohammed,  as  Amir,  and  this  prince  was  for- 

41 


INDIA 

mally  received  as  such  by  Lord  Mayo  (1868-1872) 
at  Umballa.  During  the  viceroyalty  of  Lord  Lytton 
(1872-1876)  it  became  known  that  Sher  AH  had 
made  overtures  to,  and  received  an  envoy  from, 
Russia,  and,  as  he  refused  to  entertain  a  mission 
sent  from  India,  war  was  declared  in  1878;  he  was 
defeated  by  General  (now  Field-Marshal  Earl)  Rob- 
erts, his  son,  Yakub  Khan,  was  seated  on  the  throne, 
and  a  British  Resident,  Sir  Louis  Cavagnari,  was 
appointed  to  the  Afghan  court.  Within  a  few 
months  Cavagnari  was  assassinated,  Yakub  Khan 
abdicated,  and  the  late  Amir  Abdul  Rahman,  the 
representative  of  the  line  of  Dost  Mohammed,  was 
recognised  by  Lord  Ripon  (1880-1884)  as  Amir. 

The  chief  event  of  the  viceroyalty  of  Lord  Dufferin 
(1884-1888)  was  the  third  Burmese  War,  due  far 
more  to  justifiable  fear  of  French  intervention  than 
to  the  misgovernment  of  King  Thebaw,  whose  per- 
sonal vices  certainly,  and  whose  political  misdeeds 
probably,  have  been  somewhat  exaggerated.  As  a 
result  of  the  war,  Upper  Burma  was  annexed,  and 
subsequent  viceroyalties  up  to  the  present  date 
resulted  in  no  important  additions  to  the  Empire, 
though  Lord  Elgin  was  driven  by  the  force  of  cir- 
cumstances to  take  and  retain  Chitral,  two  years 
after  which  event  occurred  the  most  serious  and 
widespread  tribal  frontier  war  we  have  had  in  India. 

The  viceroyalty  of  Lord  Curzon,  still  so  recent  as 
to  be  the  subject  of  heated  controversy,  is  chiefly 
remarkable  perhaps  for  the  policy  pursued  upon  the 
western  and  north-western  land  frontier  of  India. 

42 


LATER    HISTORY 

In  1897,  on  the  termination  of  the  Tirah  campaign, 
the  Secretary  of  State  telegraphed  to  Lord  Elgin 
urging  that,  with  the  cessation  of  hostilities,  our 
permanent  position  and  policy  should  be  defined, 
and  agreeing  with  the  Viceroy  that  our  interference 
with  independent  tribes  —  so  far  as  they  can  be 
called  independent  since  the  Durand  line  was  drawn 
—  should  be  strictly  limited  in  order  to  avoid  serious 
eventual  responsibilities  involved  in  the  extension  of 
administrative  control  over  tribal  territory.  The 
Secretary  of  State  also  urged  that  the  then  existing 
arrangements  should  be  modified  in  view  to  con- 
centration of  force.  While  he  formally  concurred 
with  the  Government  of  India  in  ascribing  the  con- 
certed, simultaneous,  and,  till  then  unprecedentedly, 
serious  risings  of  the  tribes  to  fanaticism,  Lord 
George  Hamilton  could  not  conceal  the  fact  that 
the  delimitation  of  the  spheres  of  British  and  Afghan 
influence,  in  accordance  with  the  Durand  Conven- 
tion, had  naturally  led  the  tribesmen  to  suspect 
designs  upon  their  independence.  There  are  not  a 
few  interested  in  frontier  politics,  and  among  them 
Sir  Thomas  Holdich,  who  consider  that  not  only 
was  this  result  to  be  expected,  but  that  a  mistake 
was  made  in  determining  upon  this  delimitation, 
which  necessarily  largely  increased  our  responsibili- 
ties for,  and  intervention  in,  tribal  affairs.  No 
doubt  there  is  a  difficulty  in  preserving  a  state  of 
civilised  administration  up  to,  and  ignoring  violence 
and  rapine  immediately  beyond,  a  certain  point, 
especially  when  the  inhabitants  of  either  side  are  not 

43 


INDIA 

a  constant  but  a  changing  and  interchanging  quan- 
tity: but  it  is  possible  that  our  susceptibilities  in 
this  respect  are  too  acute,  and  have  led  us  on  many 
occasions  into  interference  in  matters  we  might  well 
have  ignored,  and  into  vain  and  expensive  expedi- 
tions. To  some,  at  any  rate,  it  would  appear,  even 
from  the  narratives  of  those  responsible  for  the 
action  in  question,  that  the  dynastic  and  domestic 
squabbles  of  the  petty  chief  of  Chitral  were  such 
as  we  might  have  disregarded.  Yet  they  led  to  our 
occupation  of  what  a  great  authority  describes  as 
"a  useless,  expensive,  and  burdensome  post,"  since 
invasion  from  the  north  is  impossible.  One  serious 
objection  to  such  interference  is  that  it  can  have  no 
finality.  If  an  obligation  to  impose  law  and  order 
on  the  turbulent  frontier  tribes  lies  upon  us  in  con- 
sequence of  a  higher  standard  than  that  of  other 
nations  which  we  impose  upon  ourselves,  why  not 
upon  similar  tribes  in  Afghanistan?  —  and,  if  there, 
why  not  in  Eastern  Persia,  in  Persia  generally,  in 
Mesopotamia,  and  Asia  Minor?  Where,  indeed,  in 
such  a  policy  can  the  line  be  drawn?  The  money 
spent  in  mounting  guns  in  solitary  valleys,  the  treas- 
ure lavished  upon  fortifying  natural  forts,  would 
have  sufficed  many  times  over  to  supply  the  loans 
solicited  on  very  good  security  by  Persia,  our  refusal 
to  grant  which  threw  the  spendthrift  Shah  into  the 
arms  of  the  all-willing  Czar.  Of  course,  the  Indian 
and  Home  Budgets  are  separate  and  independent 
of  one  another,  but  now  at  any  rate  it  is  idle  to  deny 
the  fact  that  Persia  is  as  much  a  frontier  of  India 

44 


LATER    HISTORY 

as  is  Afghanistan,  but  far  weaker,  far  more  vulner- 
able, far  more  the  object  of  a  rival  Power's  solici- 
tude, so  that  Indian  money  might  be  spent  on  the 
shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf  with  as  much  propriety 
as  upon  cantonments,  roads,  and  railways  in  and 
for  the  benefit  of  Chitral,  and  other  robber-haunted 
border  hills.  It  might  be  argued  that  the  charges 
in  both  cases  more  properly  fall  on  the  Imperial 
Exchequer,  which  would,  as  regards  expenditure 
in  the  Gulf,  to  some  extent  be  recouped  in  conse- 
quence of  the  revival,  which  would  result  therefrom, 
in  our  fast-falling  trade  with  Persia,  though  neglect 
of  the  Indo-Persian  question  might  have  led  to  a 
conflagration  beside  which  the  war  with  the  Trans- 
vaal would  seem  a  feeble  flame.  Not,  indeed,  that 
Gulf  questions  have  been  neglected,  even  before 
the  conclusion  of  the  Convention  with  Russia.  The 
action  of  the  Home  Government  and  the  Viceroy, 
Lord  Curzon,  in  regard  to  the  efforts  of  the  French 
to  obtain  a  coaling  station  at  Muscat,  and  of  the 
Turks,  whether  or  not  of  their  own  motion,  to  seize 
Koweit,  was  prompt,  firm,  and  effectual. 

As  has  been  remarked  above,  the  events  of  Lord 
Curzon's  viceroyalty  are  of  such  recent  date  as  to 
be  still  the  subject  of  considerable  controversy. 
There  are  many,  however,  which  all  must  approve. 
He  wrote  off  land  revenue  amounting  to  £1,320,000, 
and  insisted  upon  a  more  lenient  method  of  assess- 
ment and  greater  elasticity  in  collection.  He  reduced 
the  salt-tax,  and  raised  the  limit  of  exemption  from 
income-tax.  He,  or  rather  his  Government,  passed 

45 


INDIA 

an  Act  in  order  to  preserve  to  the  hereditary  culti- 
vator in  the  Punjaub  the  land  he  held  by  restrict- 
ing freedom  of  alienation.  Whether  this  Act  will  in 
the  end  justify  expectations  remains  to  be  seen, 
but  it  was  a  courageous  effort,  which  also  deserves 
praise.  The  same  administration  passed  a  law  regu- 
lating labour  in  mines.  Whether  this  was  alto- 
gether needed,  and  whether  it  was  desirable  to  deal 
with  metalliferous  and  coal  mines  in  one  Act  is  a 
question  of  some  doubt,  but  it  was  at  least  a  meas- 
ure in  entire  harmony  with  the  prevailing  spirit  of 
interference  with,  and  protection  of,  labour,  which 
finds  favour  in  so  many  quarters.  As  a  fact,  restric- 
tions enforced  in  Britain  for  good  and  sufficient 
reasons,  are  seldom  desirable,  and  often  injurious 
and  unpopular,  in  India.  Witness  the  prohibition 
against  taking  women  and  children  underground. 
Nothing  is  so  desirable  as  to  wean  pauper  agricul- 
turists from  the  land  to  the  coal  mines.  Nothing, 
for  reasons  into  which  it  is  unnecessary  here  to 
enter,  is  more  likely  to  prevent  this  result  than  to 
make  it  impossible  for  his  wife  to  bring  his  food, 
which  she  cannot  do  unless  she  can  take  the  children 
with  her. 

Another  Act  of  somewhat  similar  tendency  dealt 
with  labour  in  Assam.  The  Government  of  India  re- 
garded with  suspicion  contracts  entered  into  between 
the  agents  of  planters,  on  behalf  of  their  employers, 
and  the  natives  of  Bengal,  and  the  United  Provinces, 
who  go  forth  to  work  on  tea  estates  in  Assam,  though 
there  is  overwhelming  evidence  that  these  men  are 

46 


LATER   HISTORY 

well  paid  and  well  treated,  and  they  themselves 
give  the  best  proof  possible  that  they  know  it,  by 
settling  in  large  numbers  in  Assam  at  the  expiration 
of  their  indentures.  It  is  recorded  in  the  Census  of 
1901  that  ex-tea-garden  coolies  hold  90,000  acres 
of  land  under  Government  and  thus  materially 
help  to  colonise  a  fertile  but  backward  province. 
This  last  Act  is  not  working  well,  and  it  is  devoutly 
to  be  hoped  that,  in  no  long  time,  planters,  who 
are  most  desirable  settlers  in  India,  and  who  are 
hard  hit  by  the  excessive  and  repeated  increases  of 
the  taxation  on  tea,  may  be  able  to  get  labour  immi- 
grants, not  under  contract,  but  free,  as  the  Ceylon 
planters  get  their  coolies  from  Southern  India.  A 
new  department  of  commerce  and  industry  was 
created  by  Lord  Curzon's  Government,  but  it  proved 
easier  to  create  the  department  than  to  find  the 
man.  In  fact,  the  Government  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  it  could  not  do  better  than  appoint 
the  most  suitable  Indian  civilian  they  could  find. 
It  was  very  likely  a  wise  decision,  but  it  makes 
the  creation  of  the  department  a  rather  nominal 
proceeding.  In  dealing  with  famine,  Lord  Curzon 
found  everything  ready  to  hand,  and  succeeded  to 
the  experience  of  his  predecessors.  Nevertheless, 
he  dealt  strenuously  and  effectively  with  the  most 
widespread  failure  of  crops  of  which  there  is  any 
record,  and  the  conspicuous  success  of  the  Govern- 
ment, for  which,  of  course,  the  Viceroy's  colleagues 
and  subordinates  in  India  are  entitled  to  equal 
credit,  did  not  avail  to  silence  the  bray  of  virulent 

47 


INDIA 

and  malevolent  criticism,  of  the  same  character  as 
that  which  now  impugns  the  humanity  and  efficacy 
of  the  administration  of  Lord  Minto  in  dealing  with 
the  epidemic  of  plague.  It  was  Lord  Curzon's 
constant  endeavour  to  make  known  some,  at  least, 
of  the  salient  facts  connected  with  Indian  administra- 
tion, and  it  was  distinctly  advantageous  to  point 
out  the  limitations  within  which  the  Government 
worked  in  respect  of  the  extension  of  irrigation,  of 
which  a  certain  school  of  critics  writes,  as  if  it  would 
be  a  simple  matter  to  attach  a  hose  to  a  tap  at  the 
foot  of  Cherrapunji  and  to  irrigate  India,  as  a  house- 
holder in  Hampstead  might  irrigate  his  back  garden. 

Sir  Colin  Scott  Moncrieff's  Commission  found  that 
the  Government  might  look  forward  to  an  exten- 
sion of  3,500,000  acres  at  an  outlay  of  8,000,000 
or  9,000,000  sterling,  but  there  was  no  unlimited 
and  illimitable  field.  Irrigation  works  can  only  be 
constructed  out  of  taxes,  and  should  only  be  con- 
structed when  a  reasonable  return  is  assured. 

The  opening  of  the  Quetti-Nushki  trade  route, 
the  delimitation  of  the  boundary  of  Seistan  and  of 
the  Aden  Hinterland,  must  be  put  to  the  credit  of  the 
Government  of  Lord  Curzon,  who  broke  new  ground 
by  touring  around  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  visiting 
ports,  wherever  the  interests  of  British  trade  needed 
attention.  With  his  action  in  respect  of  the  parti- 
tion of  Bengal,  the  north-west  frontier,  and  Tibet, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  deal  in  other  chapters,  and 
it  remains  here  to  refer  to  what  was  accomplished 
during  his  viceroyalty  in  regard  to  military  ad- 

48 


LATER    HISTORY 

ministration  and  education.  He  assumed  office  in 
1898,  and  in  the  following  year  severe  criticisms  were 
passed  upon  the  efficiency  of  the  Indian  army,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  it  had  done  excellent 
work  in  China,  and  in  South  Africa  had  saved  the 
situation  at  the  outset,  before  it  was  realised  that 
the  campaign  would  be  other  than  exceedingly  brief 
and  uniformly  successful.  It  was,  however,  admit- 
tedly necessary  to  re-arm  the  native  regiments, 
strengthen  the  artillery,  and  add  to  the  number  of 
the  British  officers.  There  were  also  other  im- 
provements and  developments,  which  needed  early 
attention.  Lord  Kitchener  since  1902  had  been 
Commander-in-Chief,  and  it  was  evident  that  mili- 
tary administration  would  occupy  a  leading  place 
in  the  annals  of  the  viceroyalty.  The  military 
department  had  up  till  this  time  been  managed  by 
the  Member  of  Council  in  charge,  invariably  a  soldier 
of  distinction,  like  Generals  Sir  Henry  Brackenbury, 
and  Sir  Edwin  Collen,  to  name  two  recent  occupants 
of  the  post.  He  was  the  constitutional  adviser  of 
the  Viceroy  on  military  questions,  and  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, who  is  also  appointed  as  a  matter 
of  course  (extraordinary)  Member  of  Council,  is 
responsible  for  discipline,  promotion,  mobilisation, 
and  other  functions  properly  appertaining  to  the 
head  of  the  army.  But  any  proposals  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief made  had  necessarily  to  come  before 
the  Governor-General  in  Council,  upon  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  Military  Member,  and  through 
the  Military  Department.  To  this  Lord  Kitchener 

49 


INDIA 

objected,  and  in  so  doing  he  was  not  singular  among 
Commanders-in-Chief,  for  several  of  his  predeces- 
sors had,  on  public  grounds,  demurred  to  the  posi- 
tion in  which  they  were  placed,  but  either  had  not 
the  power  or  the  will  to  alter  it.  Lord  Kitchener, 
however,  was  determined  to  create  an  army  depart- 
ment dealing  with  the  whole  military  administra- 
tion, of  which  he  should  be  the  head.  Lord  Curzon, 
with  the  support,  it  must  be  remembered,  of  the 
Ordinary  Members  of  his  Council,  held  that  under 
such  an  arrangement  all  military  authority  would 
be  concentrated  in  the  Commander-in-Chief  to  the 
practical  annihilation  of  the  necessary  supremacy 
of  the  civil  power,  which  would  thus  be  deprived 
of  independent  military  advice.  The  Secretary  of 
State  so  far  amended  the  proposal  as  to  retain  the 
Military  Member  of  Council,  while  assigning  to 
him  a  position  in  which  the  Viceroy  and  his  civil 
councillors  thought  he  would  not  be  able  to  give 
them  independent  or  authoritative  advice  upon  the 
financial  and  administrative  aspects  of  proposals 
relating  to  military  matters.  In  that  case  they 
thought  the  Governor-General  in  Council  would 
be  left  without  expert  aid  and  information  to  face 
the  newly  constituted,  and  largely  increased,  power 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief.  It  followed  from  this 
view  that  the  new  Membership  of  Military  Supply 
in  their  opinion  should  be  filled  by  an  officer  they 
considered  competent  to  act  as  their  general  adviser 
in  military  matters.  Lord  Curzon,  who  had  reluct- 
antly accepted  the  changes  approved,  after  con- 

50 


LATER    HISTORY 

sideration,  by  a  committee,  of  which  Lord  Roberts 
and  Sir  George  White,  ex-Commanders-in-Chief  of 
India,  had  been  members,  nominated  as  new  Mem- 
ber for  Military  Supply,  who  was  to  deal  in  future 
with  supply,  contracts,  military  works,  remounts, 
and  other  departmental  services,  General  Barrow, 
a  very  able  officer,  then  commanding  at  Peshawar. 
The  Secretary  of  State  and  the  Cabinet  at  home, 
however,  did  not  think  that  an  officer  occupying 
a  high,  and  likely  to  occupy  a  higher,  combatant 
command  was  likely  to  inaugurate  the  new  system 
with  an  open  mind,  especially  one  who,  from  the 
appointment  he  had  previously  held  in  the  Military 
Department,  would  naturally  have  a  leaning  towards 
one  view  of  the  controversial  position  which  had 
been  created.  Lord  Curzon  insisted  that  he  must 
have  a  colleague  capable  of  giving  advice  to  the 
Governor-General  in  Council  on  questions  of  general 
military  policy,  and  it  was  evident  he  meant  fully  to 
avail  himself  of  such  advice.  In  short,  he  desired 
the  new  Member  of  Military  Supply  to  be  as  much 
as  possible  like  the  old  Military  Member.  The 
Government  at  home  had  another  object  in  view 
and  wanted  to  make  the  new  policy  as  effectual  as 
possible,  and  the  situation  in  India  resolved  itself 
into  a  struggle  between  the  Viceroy  and  Commander- 
in-Chief  —  Lord  Curzon  having  explicitly  said  in 
his  telegram  of  10th  August,  1905,  that,  "if  the  view 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief  is  to  prevail  it  is  useless 
for  me  to  remain  in  India  since  I  could  not  frame  a 
scheme  in  accordance  with  it."  In  another  tele- 

51 


INDIA 

gram  he  truly  said  "that  the  question  was  not  one 
of  choice  of  an  individual,  but  of  principles  under- 
lying future  change  in  the  administration."  There 
was  only  one  issue.  The  Viceroy  resigned,  and  at 
his  request  the  telegraphic  correspondence  was  pub- 
lished, to  the  surprise  and  regret  of  those  who  realised 
the  effect  it  would  inevitably  have  upon  the  public 
mind  in  India.  Into  the  technical  questions  at  issue 
it  is  difficult  for  others  than  experts  to  probe. 
Lord  Roberts  had  found  the  existing  system  cum- 
brous, dilatory,  and  complicated.  Sir  George  White 
and  Sir  William  Lockhart  found  the  difficulties  very 
great.  Yet  the  Military  Member  had  tended  every 
year  to  become  more  of  an  expert  adviser  than  a 
civil  administrator,  more  and  more  a  rival  of  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  to  whom  he  gave  authorita- 
tively independent  opinions  on  purely  military  ques- 
tions, and  conveyed  adverse  decisions  even  without 
reference  to  the  Governor-General  in  Council.  Lord 
Kitchener's  attitude  met  with  the  approval  of  pro- 
fessional opinion,  and  it  remains  to  see  how  the 
new  system  works.  It  certainly  was  not  rashly 
or  lightly  undertaken,  and  the  Committee  which 
reported  to  the  India  Office  was  one  of  unusual 
strength  and  ability,  including  the  then  Secretary 
of  State,  now  Lord  Middleton,  Lords  Roberts  and 
Salisbury,  Field-Marshal  Sir  George  White,  Sir 
James  Mackay,  Sir  Edward  Law,  and  General  Sir 
John  Gordon.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  owned 
that  opinion  in  India  inclined  to  support  Lord  Curzon 
and  the  dissenting  Members  of  Council.  The  one 

52 


LATER    HISTORY 

thing  certain  is  that  in  the  eyes  of  all  India  the 
Viceroy,  hitherto  regarded  as  the  outward  and 
visible  expression  of  supreme  power,  engaged  in  an 
administrative  battle  with  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
and  was  beaten.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  disaffected 
and  agitator  elements  in  the  community  failed  to 
draw  the  obvious  moral,  and  to  regard  the  head  of 
the  Indian  administration  as  a  mere  mortal  after  all. 
Mr.  Morley,  who  took  office  soon  after  Lord  Minto 
became  Viceroy,  had  to  deal  with  the  draft  rules 
of  business  proposed  by  the  Government  of  India, 
in  connection  with  which  many  of  the  largest  ques- 
tions of  military  organisation  were,  or  could  have 
been,  raised  anew  or  again.  In  a  published  despatch, 
the  tactful  and  skilful  character  of  which  met  with 
general  approval,  he  amended  the  draft  rules  so  as 
to  provide  that  all  matters  before  they  reached  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  or  member  in  charge  of  the 
Army  Department,  should  pass  through  the  Secre- 
tary to  the  Government  of  India  in  the  Army  Depart- 
ment. He  went  far  to  neutralise  the  serious  effect 
upon  India  of  this  struggle  and  of  its  result,  by 
safeguarding  the  fundamental  principle  that  the 
Government  of  India  in  all  its  branches,  aspects, 
and  divisions,  subject  to  the  statutory  powers  of 
the  Secretary  of  State,  has  been  solemnly  and  delib- 
erately confided  by  Parliament  to  the  Governor- 
General  in  Council.  That  is  to  say  that  the  army 
was  no  exception  in  this  behalf. 

Space  will  not  allow  of  any  detailed  history  of 
the  army  of  India  under  the  East  India  Company, 

53 


INDIA 

of  the  armies  of  Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay, 
and  of  the  present  unified  Indian  army.  The  first 
began  with  the  enrolment  of  sepoys  in  1784  in  Madras 
by  Major  Stringer  Lawrence,  in  order  to  enable  us 
to  fight  the  French,  who  in  1748  had  captured  the 
southern  capital.  Each  Presidency  army  was  orig- 
inally separate  and  distinct,  and  it  was  the  military 
genius  of  Robert  Clive  which  made  the  native  troops 
into  good  soldiers,  and  enlisted  all  the  likely  material 
which  came  to  hand.  The  extension  of  the  Com- 
pany's rule  after  Plassey  was  accompanied  by  cor- 
responding development  in  the  military  forces.  In 
1764  the  Bengal  sepoys  mutinied  for  higher  pay,  and 
in  1768  the  European  officers  conspired  because 
camp  allowances  in  cantonment  were  stopped.  The 
armies  of  native  princes  at  this  period  were  of  huge 
dimensions,  of  little  cohesion,  and  of  less  training. 
The  Mahratta  forces,  which  enjoyed  great  mobility 
and  powers  of  endurance,  were,  however,  organised 
by  Sivaji  into  formidable  foes,  but  even  they  were 
hardly  professional  soldiers,  like  the  Sikhs,  who, 
after  the  dissolution  of  their  army,  returned  to  the 
plough  but  have  ever  since  supplied  us  with  soldiers, 
than  whom  there  are  no  better,  serving  any  Power. 
The  Presidency  armies,  after  frequent  trials  of 
strength  with  loosely  organised  native  levies,  were 
themselves  reorganised  in  1796,  after  which,  and  in 
1805,  further  vast  territories  were  annexed,  so  that 
after  the  third  Mahratta  War  the  three  Presidential 
armies  consisted  of  24,500  British  and  130,000 
native  troops.  Then  in  1806  occurred  the  mutiny 

54 


LATER   HISTORY 

at  Vellore,  and  afterwards  Madras  European  officers 
in  turn  conspired  for  higher  pay. 

In  1824  there  was  another  reorganisation,  and  in 
1846  local  corps,  such  as  the  Corps  of  Guides,  and 
the  Punjaub  Irregular  Forces,  were  enrolled  for 
duty  on  the  frontier.  On  the  eve  of  the  Mutiny, 
the  army  consisted  of  39,500  British  and  311,000 
native  troops,  the  latter  out-numbering  the  former 
by  nearly  eight  to  one.  During  the  great  crisis  the 
Punjaub  frontier  force,  the  Hyderabad  contingent, 
and  the  Madras  and  Bombay  armies  remained  loyal, 
and  it  is  believed  that  dislike  of  the  mutinous 
Bengal  army,  which  finds  an  echo  in  the  distrust 
with  which  the  natives  of  other  provinces  regard 
Bengali  pretensions  at  the  present  day,  was  at 
least  one  of  the  factors  making  for  loyalty  elsewhere. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  an  able  writer  in  the  Imperial 
Gazetteer  of  India,  General  Sir  Edwin  Collen,  that 
among  the  causes  of  the  Mutiny  were  measures 
political,  domestic,  and  military,  which  were  car- 
ried out  to  satisfy  the  craving  for  improvement 
according  to  Western  ideals,  and  if  this  were  so  in 
1857,  it  is  certainly  not  less  so  half  a  century  later, 
when  the  outcry  of  a  few  denationalised  extremists 
is  accepted  far  too  readily  in  many  quarters  as  the 
voice  of  India.  Not  a  fluent  Bengali,  who  has 
broken  with  all  the  ideals  and  habits  of  his  own 
country,  and  is  regarded  by  the  Hindoo  masses 
with  dislike  and  suspicion,  but  will  prate  about 
representative  government,  improvement,  and 
progress  to  willing  and  easily  deluded  ears  in  this 

55 


INDIA 

» .       i 

country.  Of  course  the  annexation  of  Oudh  was  a 
great  predisposing  cause,  and  then  again  the  Gov- 
ernment of  India  proceeded  upon  the  assumption 
that  an  administration  which  violated  the  received 
ideals  of  Western  government  must  necessarily 
have  been  odious  to  the  native  population.  There 
is  very  little  proof,  however,  that  this  was  the 
case,  and  it  is  quite  certain  that  some  of  the  very 
features  of  our  rule  of  which  we  are  most  proud  are 
those  which  are  particularly  unpopular  with  the 
natives.  Brahmins  thought  they  saw  signs  of  the 
destruction  of  their  influence  in  the  suppression  of 
suttee,  and  the  legal  remarriage  granted  to  Hindoo 
widows,  and  of  course  the  substance  used  for  lubri- 
cating the  cartridges  was  made  of  animal  fat.  It 
is  a  singular  circumstance  that,  in  spite  of  this, 
cotton  goods  for  India  continue  to  be  sized  with 
some  such  substance,  though  it  is  believed  that 
a  vegetable  substitute  might  easily  be  devised.  In 
1907  a  Bengali  agitator  addressed  a  meeting  at 
Assansole  saying  that  sugar  was  refined  with  pigs' 
and  cows'  blood.  It  is  also  notorious  that  British 
officers  in  India  are  less  in  touch  with  the  natives 
than  they  were  formerly.  Many  indeed  are  wholly 
dependent  upon  interpreters  who  fasten  like  leeches 
upon  men  in  authority  and  carefully  keep  all  infor- 
mation from  their  ears,  and  this  is  true  not  merely 
of  such  travellers  as  are  only  too  willing  to  believe 
evil  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  but  even  of  well- 
disposed  and  moderate  men  who  are  like  clay  in 
the  hands  of  the  potter  when  they  fall  into  the 

56 


LATER    HISTORY 

clutches  of  astute  and  intriguing  Babus,  with  axes 
to  grind.  Meanwhile,  so  little  does  the  native  of 
the  country  agree  with  the  said  Babu,  that  he  would 
exclaim  with  the  old  Pindari: 

"I  had  rather  be  robbed  by  a  tall  man  who  showed 

me  a  yard  of  steel, 

Than  fleeced  by  a  sneaking  babu  with  a  belted  knave 
at  his  heel."       | 

One  predisposing  cause  towards  the  Mutiny  in 
the  opinion  of  good  soldiers  was  the  diminution  in 
authority  of  the  commanding  officers,  another  was 
the  all-pervading  and  all-powerful  influence  of  the 
Brahmins  in  the  Bengal  army.  Yet  at  the  present 
moment  an  agitation  is  proceeding  in  India  which 
is  entirely  caused  by,  and  restricted  to,  Brahmins 
and  other  high  castes  in  sympathy  with  them,  who 
even  now  have  an  immense  and  preponderating 
influence  in  the  government  of  the  country,  but 
would  fain  be  rid  of  the  impartial  supervision  of 
British  officers,  who  refuse  to  let  them  plant  their 
heels  upon  the  necks  of  the  lower  castes  and  classes. 
Again,  disaster  in  Afghanistan  had  broken  the  charm 
of  invincibility,  which  had  previously  attached  to 
our  arms,  just  as  at  the  present  moment  the  prick- 
ing by  Japan  of  the  Russian  bubble,  which  we  had 
always  shown  an  obvious  reluctance  to  try  to  prick, 
has  undoubtedly  impaired  the  belief  of  the  East  in 
the  natural  and  inevitable  superiority  of  Western 
over  Eastern  arms;  and  just  before  the  Mutiny, 
stories  were  in  circulation  in  India  about  our  diffi- 
culties in  the  Crimea,  which  had  their  counterpart 

57 


INDIA 

quite  recently  in  the  alarmist  rumours  regarding  our 
position  in  South  Africa,  nor  was  the  existence  of 
secret  agents,  conspiring  against  the  Government 
and  endeavouring  to  debauch  the  Sepoys,  wanting 
then,  nor  is  it  lacking  at  the  present  day.  Nothing 
indeed  was  necessary  to  cause  the  unrest,  which  is 
now  happily  subsiding,  to  break  out  into  overt  acts 
of  hostility  but  weakness  and  vacillation  in  high 
places,  of  which  fortunately  there  has  been  none. 
Mr.  Morley  has  said  that  patience  and  firmness  are 
the  watchwords  of  the  present  situation,  and  he  has 
shown  himself  not  only  able  to  formulate  the  right 
policy,  but  to  carry  it  into  effect.  Fortunately, 
there  is  no  doubt  at  all  about  the  loyalty  of  the 
sepoys  at  the  present  moment.  Indeed,  they  treated 
the  overtures  of  the  agitators  with  the  utmost  con- 
tempt. None  the  less  has  the  situation  recently 
been  one  which  cannot  but  inspire  with  grave  mis- 
givings those  who  are  familiar  with  Indian  conditions, 
and  all  must  unite  in  thanking  Heaven  that  the  crisis 
found  a  statesman  at  the  helm.  After  the  Mutiny, 
the  European  army  of  the  East  India  Company  was 
transferred  to  the  Crown,  and  a  Royal  Commission 
advised  that  the  European  forces  should  be  80,000 
strong  and  that  the  Indian  troops  should  not  exceed 
them  by  more  than  two  to  one  in  Bengal,  and  three 
to  one  in  Madras  and  Bombay,  recommendations 
which  were  adopted,  and  remain  in  force  to  the 
present  day.  The  British  troops  serving  in  India 
are  lent  to,  and  paid  for  by,  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment, from  which  a  capitation  grant  of  £7  105.  has 

58 


LATER    HISTORY 

been  levied  since  1890.  This  represents  the  cost  of 
enlisting  and  training  the  recruit,  and  certain  other 
charges,  but  Sir  Henry  Brackenbury  and  four  other 
members  of  the  Indian  Expenditure  Commission 
thought  that  no  charge  should  be  made  on  this 
account.  Differences  of  opinion  between  the  Home 
and  Indian  Governments  regarding  allocation  of 
the  charges  have  frequently  been,  and  still  are, 
under  consideration.  In  1893  Parliament  passed 
an  act  abolishing  the  offices  of  Commander-in-Chief 
in  the  Madras  and  Bombay  armies,  and  withdrawing 
the  power  of  military  control  from  the  governments 
of  these  Presidencies.  Before  this  measure  was  car- 
ried out  the  Bengal  army  had  become  unwieldy, 
which  was  bad,  and  tended  to  become  homogeneous, 
which  was  worse,  and  it  was  decided  to  divide  India 
into  the  four  territorial  commands  of  the  Punjaub, 
Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay,  each  under  a  lieu- 
tenant-general. It  was  subsequent  to  this  date,  in 
1899-1900,  that  India  despatched  the  force  which 
saved  Natal,  the  British  infantry  having  been  armed 
with  the  Lee-Metford  rifle  in  the  previous  year. 
Since  1903  the  army,  consisting  of  five  commands 
since  the  separation  of  Burma  from  Madras,  is 
made  up  of  74,170  British  and  157,941  native 
troops,  and  this  brings  the  narrative  down  to  the 
time  of  Lord  Kitchener,  who,  besides  initiating  the 
important  administrative  changes,  of  which  a  full 
account  has  been  given  above,  has  also  commenced 
to  introduce  a  new  scheme  of  military  organisation, 
the  leading  features  of  which  are  recognition  of  the 

59 


INDIA 

• 

fact  that  the  chief  function  of  the  army  is  the  de- 
fence of  the  north-west  frontier,  and  that  the  forces 
in  time  of  peace  should  be  organised  and  trained  in 
units  of  command  similar  to  those  in  which  they  will 
take  the  field  in  time  of  war.  In  pursuance  of  this 
policy,  many  small  military  stations  are  being  aban- 
doned and  troops  concentrated  in  large  cantonments 
in  three  Army  Corps  of  ten  Divisional  Commands, 
each  of  which  will  supply  a  full  division  to  take  the 
field.  Regiments  are  organised  on  the  "class,"  or 
on  the  "class  squadron,"  or  "class  company"  system. 
The  Gurkha  regiments,  for  instance,  are  all  Gurkhas, 
and  in  some  cases  four  companies  of  a  regiment  may 
be  Sikhs  and  four  Mohammedans,  and  so  on.  Enlist- 
ment is  for  general  service  within  or  without  British 
territory,  and,  if  necessary,  beyond  the  sea.  The 
volunteers  in  India  are  now  34,000  strong,  including 
reservists,  and  they  may  yet  do,  as  they  have  done 
in  the  past,  good  work  at  critical  times.  Some  of 
the  native  states  maintain  armies  in  addition  to 
Imperial  service  troops,  but  though  these  levies 
number  93,000  men  in  all,  they  are  not  a  very  for- 
midable force.  Nepaul  has  an  army  of  45,000  men, 
and  could  raise  many  more  if  needed,  while  the 
standing  army  of  Afghanistan  numbers  from  65,000 
to  70,000  regular  troops,  organised  more  or  less  like 
those  of  the  British  Government,  and  20,000  irregu- 
lars. All  these  troops  are  well  armed,  and  every 
Afghan  is  a  first-rate  fighting  man. 

The  above  brief  excursus  upon  the  army  arose 
out  of  the  differences  which  occurred  during  Lord 

60 


LATER    HISTORY 

Curzon's  Viceroyalty,  and  in  like  manner  it  would 
be  difficult  to  appreciate  the  action  taken  by  the 
Government  of  the  same  Viceroy,  during  his  term 
of  office,  which  extended  to  nearly  twice  that  of  the 
average  holder,  without  briefly  reviewing  a  few  of 
the  more  salient  events  in  the  history  of  education. 
Under  the  old  Hindoo  system,  advanced  instruc- 
tion was  strictly  confined  to  the  upper  castes,  and 
under  the  Mohammedans  education  was  inseparably 
connected  with  mosques  and  shrines.  Early  in  the 
19th  century  a  knowledge  of  English  became  a  mar- 
ketable acquirement,  and  missionaries  and  philan- 
thropists in  England  and  in  India  brought  pressure 
to  bear  on  the  Government  in  favour  of  popular 
education.  Two  parties  arose  —  the  Anglicists  and 
the  Orientalists;  the  former  contending  that  the 
knowledge  and  science  of  the  Western  world  should 
be  conveyed  to  the  natives  by  the  medium  of  Eng- 
lish, and  the  Orientalists  desiring  that  vernacular 
education  should  be  supplemented  by  the  study 
of  the  classical  languages  of  the  East.  The  Angli- 
cists carried  the  day,  led  by  Lord  Macaulay,  whose 
famous  minute,  which  has  been  so  frequently  eulo- 
gised, in  which  seas  of  treacle  and  butter,  and  kings 
thirty  feet  high  are  held  up  to  ridicule,  is  really  a 
very  shallow  piece  of  writing  and  reasoning.  It 
would  be  equally  easy  to  ridicule  the  beautiful 
mythology  of  the  Greeks,  whose  influence  upon  the 
development  of  civilisation  has  been  unequalled, 
and  it  is  very  unlikely  that  Macaulay  had  read  the 
literature  he  professed  to  despise.  The  consequences 

61 


INDIA 

of  the  decision  at  which  the  Government  arrived 
have  been,  and  will  be  still  more,  momentous,  for 
it  may  be  regarded  as  certain  that  Orientalism  will 
never  again  have  strength  enough  to  raise  its  head. 
In  1854  Sir  Charles  Wood  (Lord  Halifax)  directed 
the  constitution  in  each  province  of  departments 
of  public  instruction,  the  creation  of  universities 
at  Presidency  towns,  the  establishment  of  training 
colleges,  the  multiplication  of  vernacular  schools 
for  elementary  education,  and  the  introduction  of  a 
system  of  grants  in  aid  to  schools  maintained  by 
private  bodies  or  persons,  English  being  prescribed 
as  the  medium  of  instruction  in  the  higher  branches. 
From  this  date  up  to  1882  great  progress  was  made, 
to  review  which,  and  to  criticise  the  whole  system, 
a  commission  was  then  appointed,  with  the  result 
that  the  general  principles  of  the  Act  of  1854  were 
reaffirmed,  amended,  and  supplemented. 

At  the  end  of  1902,  4,000,000  students  were  under 
instruction;  in  twenty  years  the  number  of  pupils 
in  primary  had  increased  by  49  and  in  secondary 
schools  by  180  per  cent.,  and  more  than  23,000 
undergraduates  and  students  of  various  professions 
were  receiving  instruction  in  200  colleges,  in  spite 
of  which,  in  1901,  only  98  per  1000  in  the  case  of 
males,  and  7  per  1000  in  the  case  of  females,  were 
able  to  read  ana  write. 

Burma,  the  native  states  of  Travancore  and 
Baroda,  Madras,  Bombay,  and  Bengal  is  the  order 
of  merit  for  literacy,  though  claims,  wholly  unsus- 
tainable as  the  Census  shows,  are  frequently  made 

62 


LATER    HISTORY 

for  Bengal  that  it  is  the  most  educated  part  of 
India.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  of  the  greater  provinces, 
only  two  —  the  Punjaub  and  the  United  Provinces  — 
occupy  a  lower  position  in  the  list,  and  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  more  degraded,  bloody,  and 
immoral  forms  of  Hindooism  find  their  home  in 
this  province,  to  which  fact,  were  proof  needed, 
the  writings  of  recent  travellers  and  observers  amply 
testify.  It  is  not,  however,  only  in  Bengal  that 
education  somewhat  lags  behind  the  ideals  set 
before  the  Government,  for  only  one-sixth  of  the 
boys  of  school-going  age  were  following  the  course 
of  primary  instruction  in  1901-1902.  Secondary 
is  more  developed  than  primary  education,  and  a 
very  valuable  Resolution  of  the  Government  of 
India  not  long  since  was  issued  deprecating  the 
undoubted  sacrifice  of  the  vernacular  languages  to 
English  in  the  secondary  schools.  Higher  education, 
such  as  it  is,  has  spread  far  and  wide,  and  in  1901- 
1902  nearly  15,000  students  became  Bachelors  of 
Arts,  but  it  was  admitted  by  the  Indian  Universities 
Commission  that  the  acquirements  of  Indian  gradu- 
ates were  in  many  cases  inadequate  and  superficial. 
These  youths  live  during  their  university  course 
with  their  friends  or  in  lodgings,  with  results  which 
are  admittedly  unsatisfactory,  and  to  remedy  which 
the  Indian  Government  is  encouraging  the  hostel 
system. 

Education  has  made  less  way  amongst  the  Mo- 
hammedans, and  in  the  case  of  females  presents,  of 
course,  peculiar  difficulties.  The  proportion  of  girls 

63 


INDIA 

i 

under  instruction  is  highest  in  Madras,  and  the 
difference  of  the  attitude  towards  this  question  in 
different  provinces  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  in 
Burma  74  and  in  Madras  52  per  cent,  of  the  girls 
at  school  are  found  in  boys'  schools,  while  in  the 
Punjaub  the  like  figure  falls  to  one  per  cent. 

Space  does  not  allow  of  any  consideration  of  the 
Chief's  Colleges,  the  technical  and  industrial,  the 
arts,  engineering,  medical,  agricultural,  veterinary, 
and  normal  colleges  and  schools,  but  all  are  repre- 
sented in  the  complete  and  complex  educational 
system  of  India.  Everywhere  the  State  maintains 
a  position  of  strict  religious  neutrality.  No  religious 
instruction  is  given  in  Government  schools,  and  pri- 
vate institutions,  provided  their  secular  education  is 
satisfactory,  may  give  instruction  in  any  religion 
whatsoever.  The  all-important  question  of  moral 
training  was  considered  in  1887-88,  and  suitable 
text-books,  physical  training,  and  athletic  sports 
were  recommended  as  an  antidote  to  the  want  of 
reverence,  respect,  and  religious  obedience,  which 
merely  secular  education  is  said,  and  probably 
rightly  said,  to  promote.  Great  care  is  taken  in 
the  selection  of  the  text-books;  a  difficult  matter 
where  so  many  languages  are  spoken,  but,  in  fact, 
the  measures  taken  have  not  availed  to  scotch, 
much  less  kill,  evils  the  existence  of  which  cannot 
be  denied. 

The  educational  situation  called  for  the  Viceroy's 
attention.  Lord  Curzon  was  not  the  man  to  pass 
by  any  nettle  which  needed  to  be  grasped,  and  he 

64 


LATER    HISTORY 

himself  presided  over  a  conference  of  educational 
officers  which  he  called  together  to  consider  the 
situation.  He  was  under  no  illusion  as  to  the  deli- 
cate ground  on  which  he  was  treading,  nor  indeed 
was  he  mistaken  as  to  the  necessity  for  reform. 
He  appointed  a  Director-General  of  Education, 
and  a  University  Commission,  he  further  legislated 
upon  the  University  question,  and  he  had  the  cour- 
age to  say  that  the  vernacular  languages  were  being 
neglected  and  degraded  in  the  pursuit  of  English, 
and  very  often  bad  Efiglish,  for  the  sake  of  the 
mercantile  value  of  the  latter  language.  He  made 
primary  education  a  charge  upon  provincial  reve- 
nues and  supplemented  these  charges  by  permanent 
annual  grants.  He  laid  down  tests  for  the  official 
recognition  of  secondary  education,  and  he  realised 
that  our  higher  instruction  trained  the  memory  at 
the  expense  of  the  mind.  He  also  introduced  impor- 
tant reforms  into  training  colleges,  and  primary  and 
industrial  schools.  The  university  legislation  of  his 
Government  was  the  cause  of  his  being  overwhelmed 
with  obloquy  by  the  Babus  of  Bengal.  Here  it 
should  be  observed  in  passing  that  "Babu"  is  an 
honorific  title  which  an  educated  Bengali  gentle- 
man gives  to  himself,  and  if  it  now  connotes  any 
other  significance,  such  can  only  be  due  to  the  chief 
characteristics  of  those  who  bear  it.  Five  univer- 
sities, founded  on  the  model  of  London  University, 
as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  control  the  instruction 
given  in  nearly  200  colleges,  which,  however,  were 
practically  under  no  inspection,  and  in  respect  of 

65 


INDIA 

which  no  uniformity  of  standard  or  ideals  were  re- 
quired. It  was  to  the  interest  of  the  weaker  col- 
leges to  lower  the  standard,  nor  were  they  checked 
in  this  aspiration  by  the  governing  bodies  of  the 
universities.  The  object,  on  the  contrary,  of  the 
senate  was  to  turn  out  the  largest  number  of  gradu- 
ates, and  Lord  Curzon's  Commission  of  1902  having 
clearly  brought  to  light  the  chief  defects  of  the  sys- 
tem, the  Indian  Government  determined  to  provide 
all  universities  with  new  senates,  mainly  composed 
of  teachers,  and  to  leave  each  university  to  frame 
its  own  regulations  and  inspect  its  own  colleges. 
The  action  taken  was  exceedingly  unpopular,  partic- 
ularly with  the  Bengali  Babus,  and  with  the  Bengali 
press  which  represents  them  in  such  a  full-blooded 
and  uncompromising  fashion. 

The  charge  was  that  Lord  Curzon  desired  to  offi- 
cialise the  universities,  and  to  insist  upon  a  standard 
of  efficiency  so  high  that  it  would  crush  the  weaker 
colleges  which  had  been  found  so  useful  to  the  Babu 
class  in  the  manufacture  of  graduates.  There  is  no 
reason  for  supposing  that  the  reconstructed  senates 
have  dealt  severely  with  the  less  satisfactory  col- 
leges, but  there  is  no  doubt  that  Lord  Curzon  has 
been  overwhelmed  with  obloquy  for  action  in  itself 
praiseworthy.  This  feeling  was  intensified  by  the 
delivery  of  his  Convocation  Address  in  1905,  in 
which  he  stated  that  the  highest  ideal  of  truth  is  to 
a  great  extent  a  Western  conception,  and  that  truth 
took  a  high  place  in  the  moral  codes  of  the  West 
before  it  had  been  similarly  honoured  in  the  East. 

66 


LATER    HISTORY 

This  comprehensive  and  unnecessary  generalisation 
naturally  gave  very  great  offence.  Every  Oriental 
scholar  will  remember  the  well-known  lines  of  Sadi : 

"Better  to  lie  with  good  intent, 
Than  tell  the  truth,  if  harm  is  meant"; 

and  in  the  Mahabharata  falsehood  is  said  to  be 
permissible  in  five  cases  —  marriage,  love,  danger  to 
life,  loss  of  property,  or  the  benefit  of  a  Brahmin. 
But  it  is  a  fact  that  those  who  are  accustomed  to 
associate  with  the  natives  of  India  in  other  than  an 
official  capacity  by  no  means  accuse  them  of  being 
generally  untruthful.  Indeed,  the  Hindoos  and 
Mohammedans,  apart  from  the  atmosphere  of  courts 
of  all  sorts,  may  fairly  be  described  as  truthful  and 
straight-dealing  people.  The  contrary  impression 
would  no  doubt  be  created  upon  those  who  had  had 
all  association  with  them  through  interpreters,  in 
whose  case  the  Italian  proverb  Traduttori  traditori 
is  peculiarly  appropriate. 


67 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  LAND  SYSTEM 

THE  land  revenue  system  of  India,  upon  which, 
in  recent  years,  many  and  great  assaults 
have  been  delivered,  was  not  invented  by 
the  British,  but  was  inherited  by  them,  like  so  many 
other  systems  which  form  an  integral  part  of  their 
administration,  from  their  predecessors  in  title.  In 
a  former  chapter  passing  reference  has  been  made 
to  the  fact  that,  in  the  reign  of  the  most  moderate 
of  all  the  great  Moguls,  the  land-tax  was  so  regu- 
lated that  nothing  was  left  to  the  cultivator  beyond 
what  sufficed  for  the  subsistence  of  himself  and 
his  family,  together  with  enough  seed  for  sowing 
next  season's  crop.  Passing  reference  was  also 
made  to  what  the  earliest  writers  on  India  have 
recorded  on  this  all-important  subject.  That  it  is 
all  important,  no  one  can  doubt,  seeing  that  two- 
thirds  of  the  people  of  India  are  engaged  directly 
or  indirectly  in  agricultural  pursuits,  so  that  if  our 
land  policy  is  bad  it  would  be  difficult,  indeed,  to 
claim  that  our  administration  in  general  was  good. 
The  argument  that  the  British  grind  the  people 
down,  and  that  the  severity  of  the  land  system  has 
led  to  the  frequency  of  famines,  is  noticed  in  its 

68 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

proper  place,  though  it  is  in  itself  not  worthy  to  be 
answered. 

Among  the  critics  are  Mr.  R.  C.  Dutt,  C.I.E.,  and 
others  with  more  or  less  qualifications  for  express- 
ing opinions  upon  this  very  technical  subject.  From 
time  immemorial  the  Government  has  been  entitled 
to  a  certain  proportion  of  the  produce  of  all  land, 
the  rights  to  which  have  not  been  limited,  and  the 
procedure  by  which  that  proportion  is  determined 
is  called  the  settlement  of  the  land  revenue.  Such 
settlements  are  of  two  kinds:  permanent,  by  which 
the  demand  of  the  State  is  forever  fixed,  and  tem- 
porary, by  which  the  State  demand  is  revised  at 
recurring  periods.  The  permanent  districts  cover  the 
greater  part  of  Bengal,  parts  of  the  United  Provinces 
and  of  Madras,  and  certain  other  isolated  tracts.  At 
one  time,  the  extension  of  the  permanent  settlement 
throughout  India  was  advocated,  and  critics  of  the 
school  of  which  Mr.  Dutt  may  be  regarded  as  an 
example  urged  that  had  this  policy  been  carried 
into  effect  forty  years  ago,  India  would  have  been 
spared  the  worst  famine  of  recent  years.  It  is  held 
by  the  same  school,  and  this  is  a  most  important 
plank  in  the  Congress  platform,  that  in  consequence 
of  the  permanent  settlement  the  cultivators  of  Ben- 
gal are  more  prosperous  than  those  of  any  other 
part  of  India.  If  it  were  a  fact  that  the  cultiva- 
tors of  Bengal  enjoyed  exceptional  prosperity,  there 
would,  indeed,  be  some  reason  for  the  inference  that 
the  permanent  settlement  was  the  cause.  But  there 
is,  in  fact,  no  ground  whatever  for  any  such  assertion. 

69 


INDIA 

Bengal,  as  a  whole,  and  particularly  the  new  prov- 
ince of  Eastern  Bengal,  possesses  exceptional  fertil- 
ity and  means  of  communication,  a  monopoly  of 
the  production  of  jute,  and  the  possession  of  the 
greatest  city  in  India  as  one  of  its  capitals.  Yet  not 
all  these  advantages  avail  to  save  Bengal  from  serious 
drought  whenever  the  monsoon  failure  reaches  that 
region.  Noticing  earlier  famines  in  this  province, 
that  of  Behar  in  1873-1874  cost  the  State  6,000,000 
sterling,  while  in  the  famine  of  1897  more  than  three- 
quarters  of  a  million  of  the  population  were  on  relief. 
A  careful  consideration  of  the  history  of  famines 
during  British  administration,  and  of  such  informa- 
tion as  is  available  on  the  subject  in  ante-British 
days,  lends  no  support  whatever  to  the  contention 
that  Bengal  has  been  saved  from  famine  by  the  per- 
manent settlement,  or  that  its  cultivators  enjoyed 
any  exceptional  prosperity,  over  and  above  such  as 
is  due  to  the  climate  and  geographical  causes.  Still 
less  is  there  any  ground  for  thinking  that  the  culti- 
vators and  tenants  of  the  state-created  landlords  in 
Bengal  enjoy,  owing  to  the  permanent  settlement, 
any  exceptional  prosperity.  On  the  contrary,  it 
was  because  they  were  especially  impoverished  and 
oppressed  that  the  Government  of  India  was  com- 
pelled, by  a  series  of  legislative  measures,  to  place 
them  in  the  position  of  greater  security  which  they 
now  enjoy.  This  legislation  has  not  only  no  con- 
nection with  the  permanent  settlement,  but  has 
been  designed  to  confer  those  benefits  which  that 
settlement  has  altogether  failed  to  secure.  Absen- 

70 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

tee  landlordism,  unsympathetic  management,  bad 
relations  between  landlord  and  tenant,  the  multipli- 
cation of  middlemen,  and  unhappy  relations  between 
owners  and  cultivators  obtained  in  Bengal  to  a 
greater  extent  than  elsewhere  in  India,  and  it  is  not 
in  the  land  settlement,  but  in  the  new  laws  which 
have  been  passed  to  check  these  abuses,  that  the 
Bengal  cultivator  has  found  salvation. 

That  criticism  has  been  more  generally  levelled 
against  the  temporary  settled  districts  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  agitation  has  been  directed  from  Bengal, 
whence  also  the  sinews  of  war  have  been  provided. 
It  is  in  no  way  due  to  the  fact  that  conditions  in  such 
districts  are  at  all  inferior.  Of  the  two  sub-divisions 
of  this  category,  the  Zemindari,  Malguzari,  or  Taluk- 
dari  tenure  —  in  which  the  landlord  pays  the  revenue 
to  the  State,  whether  he  cultivates  himself  or  through 
some  rent-paying  tenant  —  obtains  in  the  Central 
Provinces,  the  United  Provinces,  and  the  Punjaub. 
The  Government  of  India  has  always  held,  and  has 
led  the  way  in  holding,  that  in  such  cases  a  limit 
should  be  placed  to  the  rent  the  landlord  may 
demand  from  his  tenant,  and  it  would,  indeed,  be 
little  less  than  absurd  to  dwell  upon  the  necessity 
for  Government  taking  a  moderate  share  when  it 
deals  directly  with  the  tenant,  and  to  ignore  the 
necessity  for  equal  moderation  in  the  demands  of 
the  landlord.  It  is  equally  necessary  to  protect  the 
cultivator  whether  he  pays  rent  to  the  Indian  land- 
lord or  revenue  to  the  British  Indian  Government. 
In  accordance  with  these  principles,  legislation  has 

71 


INDIA 

proceeded  in  Bengal,  the  Central,  and  the  United 
Provinces,  with  little  or  no  co-operation  in  this 
behalf  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  in  a  position  to 
assist  in  carrying  out  this  policy.  It  has  further 
been  argued  that  where  the  land  revenue  is  paid  to 
the  State  by  the  landlord  the  demand  should  be 
limited,  as  a  fixed  and  invariable  rule,  to  one-half 
of  his  rent  or  assets.  It  has  been  shown  that  the 
ruling  power  has  always  been  entitled  to  a  share  in 
the  produce  of  the  soil.  Indeed,  this  doctrine  has 
been  laid  down  in  far  stronger  terms  by  the  earlier 
writers  upon  India,  who  speak  of  the  land  as  belong- 
ing to  the  State.  In  the  regulation  of  1793,  the 
Government  share  was  fixed  by  estimating  the  rent 
paid  by  the  tenants,  deducting  therefrom  the  cost 
of  collection,  allowing  the  landlords  one-eleventh  as 
their  share,  and  appropriating  the  balance,  or  ten- 
elevenths,  as  the  share  of  the  State.  The  word 
landlord  in  this  connection  means  the  intermediary 
between  the  cultivators  and  the  State,  and  the  land- 
lords in  the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  term  in  this 
country  are  the  holders  under  the  permanent  settle- 
ment to  which  reference  is  made  above,  such  as  the 
landlords  of  Bengal,  who,  though  not  the  natural 
leaders  of  the  people,  have  been  placed  in  a  position 
of  power  and  pre-eminence  by  the  action  of  Lord 
Cornwallis's  Government.  The  British  Government, 
however,  while  necessarily  adopting  the  principle 
that  it  was  entitled  to  its  share  of  the  landlord's 
assets,  began  at  once  to  moderate  its  severity,  and 
in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  demand  had 

72 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

been  limited  to  two-thirds,  while  before  the  Mutiny 
it  was  laid  down  that  about  one-half  and  not  two- 
thirds  of  the  well-ascertained  net  assets  should  be 
the  Government  share.  No  Government,  however, 
has  any  right  to  forego  revenue  the  collection  of 
which  is  conceded  by  immemorial  custom,  and  by 
the  universal  consent  of  those  who  pay  it,  unless  it 
can  tap  other  sources  with  greater  convenience  to 
the  tax-payer,  and  it  need  hardly  be  stated  that  of 
all  countries  in  the  world  subject  to  a  civilised  and 
scientific  administration  of  which  we  have  knowl- 
edge India  is  that  one  in  which  new  sources  of  reve- 
nue are  most  difficult  to  find,  and  in  which  the 
inhabitants,  while  it  never  enters  their  heads  to 
question  any  customary  payment,  are  most  rapidly 
aroused  by  the  imposition  of  any  new  tax.  The 
Government,  therefore,  never  bound  itself  to  demand 
more  than  50  per  cent,  of  the  actual  rental  of  the 
land-owner,  and  the  settlement  officers,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  people,  were  under  an  obligation  to 
take  into  consideration  any  prospective  increases  of 
income  in  determining  what  the  net  assets  were. 
Nevertheless,  the  movement  has  steadily  progressed 
in  a  downward  .direction  and  prospective  assets 
have  been  included;  allowances  have  been  made  for 
improvements,  for  vicissitudes  of  seasons,  and  for 
local  circumstances.  In  the  Central  Provinces,  the 
Government  inherited  assessments  of  75  per  cent, 
from  the  Mahrattas,  but  while  the  amounts  land- 
lords are  allowed  to  demand  from  their  tenants  have 
been  strictly  limited,  the  amounts  the  Indian  Gov- 

73 


INDIA 

ernment  takes  from  the  landlord  have  been  pro- 
gressively reduced. 

The  general  tendency  throughout  temporarily  set- 
tled Zemindari  districts  has  been  to  reduce  the 
Government  share  below  50  per  cent,  of  the  net 
assets,  and  it  is  not  a  little  extraordinary  that  the 
Congress  agitation,  which  is  so  intimately  connected 
with  the  landlord  interests,  has  persuaded  the  repre- 
sentatives of  British  democracy  in  Parliament  that 
it  is  desirable  that  the  Government  should  abandon 
the  taxes  to  which  it  is  entitled,  which  are  levied 
from  landlords,  and  spent  in  a  great  measure  on  the 
cultivator,  the  inevitable  result  of  which  would  be 
that  the  amount  remitted  would  have  to  be  made 
up  in  some  other  way  from  the  masses  who  are  less 
able  to  pay. 

Turning  to  the  temporarily  settled  districts  in 
which  the  peasant  proprietor  prevails,  the  culti- 
vator paying  directly  to  the  State,  the  provinces 
which  best  illustrate  this  tenure  are  Madras,  Bom- 
bay, Burma,  and  Assam.  It  has  been  urged  by  the 
critics  of  British  rule  that  the  Government  share 
should  be  limited  to  50  per  cent,  of  the  value  of 
the  net  produce  after  liberal  deductions  for  culti- 
vation expenses,  and  should  not  exceed  one-fifth  of 
the  gross  produce;  even  in  those  parts  of  the  coun- 
try where,  in  theory,  one-half  of  the  net  is  assumed 
to  approximate  to  one-third  of  the  gross  produce. 

Others  contend  that  a  definite  and  fixed  share  of 
the  gross  produce  should  be  adopted  as  the  State 
demand.  Few,  indeed,  of  those  who  have  any  per- 

74 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

sonal  acquaintance  with  this  problem  would  approve 
the  latter  recommendation,  for  it  is  exceedingly  diffi- 
cult to  estimate  what  the  average  produce  is,  de- 
pending as  it  does  upon  the  industry  and  resources 
of  the  cultivator,  the  nature  of  the  crop,  the  fertility 
of  the  holding,  and  the  vicissitudes  of  seasons.  In 
the  Madras  Presidency,  it  was  found  that  the  gross- 
produce  standard  favoured  the  more,  and  prejudiced 
the  less,  fertile  districts.  In  that  Presidency  and 
elsewhere,  the  net  produce  has  been  valued  at  rates 
far  below  the  current  prices,  the  out-turn  per  acre 
has  been  under-estimated,  and  liberal  deductions 
have  been  made  for  unprofitable  cultivations,  dis- 
tance from  markets,  and  vicissitudes  of  seasons,  so 
that  the  actual  rates  used  for  assessment  are  far 
below  the  nominal  share,  in  some  cases  falling  20 
per  cent,  short  of  one-quarter,  not  of  one-half,  of 
the  net  produce.  The  one  certain  thing  is  that  the 
introduction  of  the  cast-iron  system  suggested  by 
the  critics  would  largely  increase  the  burdens  of  the 
people,  who  themselves  are  naturally  and  notori- 
ously unfavourable  to  any  rigid  rule  of  revenue 
administration.  The  adoption  of  the  gross-produce 
standard  put  forward  as  an  alleviation  of  the  culti- 
vator's burdens  would  lead  to  an  all-round  increase 
of  assessments  —  indeed  in  Madras  and  the  Central 
Provinces  the  exaction  of  one-fifth  of  the  real  gross 
produce  would  double  the  liabilities  of  the  ryots. 
Turning  to  Bengal,  the  figures,  which  have  not  been 
contested,  show  that  rents  are  much  below  one-fifth 
of  the  gross  produce,  and  this  proves,  were  proof 

75 


INDIA 

necessary,  that  the  cultivators  in  Government  tem- 
porarily settled  estates  are  much  better  off  than 
those  under  proprietors  with  permanent  settlements. 
In  regard  to  the  Punjaub,  grossly  inaccurate  state- 
ments have  been  circulated  by  those  who  have 
endeavoured  to  associate  the  people  of  this  province 
with  the  agitation  current  in  Bengal.  In  the  peasant 
proprietary  districts  of  the  former  province  the  Gov- 
ernment demand  nowhere  exceeds  one-fifth,  and  is 
often  far  lower,  going  down  below  an  eighth  of  the 
gross  produce.  The  last  Famine  Commission,  pre- 
sided over  by  Sir  Antony  MacDonnell,  naturally 
paid  special  attention  to  this  subject,  and  reported 
that  the  incidence  of  land  revenue  on  the  average 
value  of  the  produce  was  less  than  4  per  cent,  in  the 
'  Central  Provinces,  7  per  cent,  in  Berar  and  most  of 
the  Punjaub,  and  in  the  Deccan  from  7  to  8  per 
cent.  Only  in  Gujerat,  which  suffered  severely 
during  the  famine,  but  where  the  profits  on  cultiva- 
tion are  very  high,  did  the  incidence  amount  to  the 
20  per  cent,  standard  which  was  recommended  in  a 
certain  memorial,  which  led  to  general  inquiries  in 
this  behalf  being  made.  A  further  recommendation 
has  been  pressed  on  the  Government,  to  the  effect 
that  temporarily  settled  districts  should  never  be 
settled  for  less  than  thirty  years,  the  term  which 
generally  obtains,  though  in  the  Punjaub  a  shorter 
period  of  twenty  years  is  the  recognised  rule,  while 
in  very  backward  districts,  such  as  Burma,  Assam, 
and  Sind,  even  shorter  periods  are  allowed.  The 
criterion  is  the  more  or  less  prosperous  condition  of 

76 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

agriculture  in  the  particular  province.  Where  there 
is  much  waste  land  and  fluctuating  cultivation,  where 
communications  are  being  improved,  population 
increasing,  and  prices  rising,  postponement  of  reset- 
tlement may  be  unjust  to  the  general  tax-payer,  but 
the  interests  of  the  masses  invariably  escape  notice  at 
the  hands  of  critics  who  belong  to  the  Brahmin  and 
upper  classes,  who  now  administer  India  under  our 
supervision,  but  who  would  have  no  objection  what- 
ever to  governing  altogether  on  their  own  account. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  resettlement  of  prov- 
inces is  a  serious  operation,  disturbing  and  unsettling 
the  minds  of  the  cultivators  concerned,  and  at  the 
present  moment  the  ryots  of  Orissa  are  dreading 
a  resettlement  of  their  province,  which  may  be 
accompanied  by  an  enhancement  of  revenue.  The 
Government  of  India  is  of  opinion  that  many  of 
the  objections  urged  to  revision  of  settlement 
have  become,  or  are  fast  becoming,  obsolete.  The 
process  is  now  more  rapidly  completed,  and  the 
necessary  records  are  more  elaborate,  though  it  may 
be  contended  that  the  people  are  not  so  appreciative 
as  is  the  Government  of  the  changes  which  operate 
in  this  direction.  The  mere  possibility  of  enhance- 
ment is  not  pleasant  to  them,  and  it  would  be  good 
policy  not  only  to  extend  the  term  in  all  cases  to 
thirty  years,  but  also  seriously  to  consider  once  more 
whether  it  would  not  be  advisable  to  make  a  perma- 
nent settlement  with  each  individual  holder.  Not 
only  might  this  prove  good  revenue  policy  in  the 
end,  but  it  would  infallibly  attach  every  single 

77 


INDIA 

peasant  proprietor  to  the  fortunes  of  the  British 
Government,  by  the  strongest  possible  tie.  Nor  is 
it  possible  to  deny  that  the  multiplication  of  cesses 
is  regarded  by  the  Indian  cultivators  as  an  injustice. 
They  and  their  ancestors  for  thousands  of  years  have 
paid  rent  or  revenue,  but  land-cesses  for  furthering 
the  services  of  Western  civilisation,  such  as  sanitation 
and  education,  are  altogether  new  imposts,  the 
necessity  for  which  they  do  not  allow,  and  the  impo- 
sition of  which  they  bitterly  resent.  An  increase  in 
the  land  revenue  may  be  borne  — 

"The  sirkar  cannot  send  the  rains, 
Although  it  hath  to  levy  toll, 
And  barren  fields  and  empty  wains 
Are  bitter  to  the  sirkar's  soul  —  " 

but  cesses  are  a  new  and  foreign  thing,  and  hated 
accordingly.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  local  rates  are 
lower  in  the  peasant  proprietor  provinces  of  Bombay 
and  Madras  than  in  the  landlord  province  of  Bengal, 
where  they  reach  6  J  per  cent,  on  the  rental.  It  may 
safely  be  affirmed  that  the  average  cultivator  does 
not  regard  primary  education  as  a  proper  subject  for 
taxation,  and  he  does  hold  with  all  his  might  that 
such  taxation  should  be  limited  to  objects  directly 
connected  with  the  land.  These  objections  do  not 
apply  to  cesses  levied  for  the  remuneration  of  village 
officers,  such  having  been  a  charge  on  the  community 
from  time  immemorial.  In  thus  criticising  the  local 
cesses  and  rates  imposed  by  the  British  Government, 
it  must  always  be  remembered  that  in  the  land- 
lord districts  numerous  other  unauthorised  village 

78 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

cesses  are  habitually  levied,  notwithstanding  the 
endeavours  of  the  Government  to  put  an  end  to  the 
practice  —  efforts  in  which  it  is  in  no  way  supported 
by  its  critics,  the  most  active  of  whom  are  closely 
connected  with  the  landlord  classes. 

The  principle  of  exempting  from  assessment  the 
occupier's  improvements  has  been  adopted  by  the 
British  Government,  first  of  all  the  rulers  of  India; 
and  the  profit  arising  from  such  improvements  has 
been  secured  to  the  cultivators  in  perpetuity  in 
Bombay  and  Madras,  and  for  lengthy  periods  in 
Bengal,  the  Punjaub,  the  United  and  the  Central 
Provinces.  In  spite,  however,  of  the  many  and 
great  advances  made  by  the  British  Government, 
all  in  the  direction  of  leniency  of  assessment,  it  is 
well  not  to  forget  that,  in  the  eyes  of  those  chiefly 
concerned,  the  object  of  a  new  settlement  is  to 
increase  the  payments  previously  made,  and  there 
is  probably  no  measure  that  would  be  more  popular 
with  the  masses  than  a  permanant  settlement,  not 
such  a  settlement  as  was  made  in  Bengal,  with  which 
indeed  no  serious  statesman  would  now  propose  to 
interfere,  but  which  none  the  less  was  conducted 
upon  principles  which  benefit  the  classes  at  the 
expense  of  the  masses,  principles  the  exact  opposite 
of  which  would  be  adopted  in  any  such  permanent 
settlement  as  is  contemplated  in  these  pages.  It  is, 
of  course,  the  case  that  the  principle  that  the  State 
has  a  right  to  a  share  in  the  produce  of  the  land 
carries  with  it  a  claim  to  a  share  in  any  increment  of 
the  produce  or  value,  and  it  might  fairly  be  argued 

79 


INDIA 

that  the  State  cannot  be  called  upon  to  surrender 
increased  values  produced  by  the  development  of 
the  country,  the  introduction  of  new  staples,  increase 
of  population,  or  any  rise  in  the  productivity  of  the 
soil,  due  to  expenditure  upon  irrigation  and  com- 
munications, incurred  by  the  exchequer.  It  is,  how- 
ever, an  important  factor  in  the  consideration  of  this 
matter  that  two-thirds  of  the  people  of  India  are 
engaged  in  agriculture,  and  that  active  efforts  are 
being  made  by  agitators  to  persuade  the  agricul- 
tural classes  to  adopt  an  attitude  of  hostility  towards 
the  British  Government.  Whether  it  is  justifiable 
to  forego  a  prospective  increase  of  revenue,  which 
would  benefit  the  general  tax-payer,  is  ordinarily  a 
question  to  be  answered  in  the  negative,  but  in 
India,  by  such  surrender,  not  less  than  two-thirds 
of  the  population  would  be  immediately  and  im- 
mensely benefited.  It  is  indeed  true  that  there  is 
no  precedent  in  native  rule  for  any  step  of  this 
nature,  but  it  is  also  true  that  we  have  since  1835 
been  busily  occupied  in  preaching  a  new  dispen- 
sation from  the  West,  in  which  Oriental  customs, 
Oriental  faiths,  and  Oriental  principles  of  adminis- 
tration are  treated  with  scant  reverence,  if  not  openly 
held  up  to  ridicule  of  the  rising  generation.  The 
strongest  objection  would  be  taken  by  the  Bengali 
critics  of  the  Government  to  the  introduction  of  a 
permanent  settlement  with  individual  peasant  pro- 
prietors, without  a  similar  concession  being  granted 
in  temporarily  settled  Zemindari  districts,  wherein 
it  is  difficult  to  make  prices  the  basis  of  assessment. 

80 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

It  might,  however,  be  urged  with  much  weight  that 
in  ryot-wari,  or  peasant  proprietary  areas,  the  only 
ground  for  enhancement  should  be  a  rise  in  prices, 
and  though  the  extension  of  this  principle  would 
involve  the  surrender  of  increment  resulting  from 
the  construction  of  public  works  at  the  cost  of  the 
general  tax-payer,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
such  surrender  would  not  be  amply  compensated  by 
the  general  content  on  the  part  of  individual  pro- 
prietors, and  by  their  greater  attachment  to  our 
rule. 

Not  only  have  the  Bengali  critics  asserted  that  the 
land  revenue  assessments  are  excessive,  but  they 
have  not  hesitated  to  allege  that  such  assessments 
have  been  responsible  for  the  frequency  of  famine. 
Throughout  the  last  century  there  has,  however, 
been  a  progressive  reduction  in  assessment,  which 
in  the  second  half  thereof  has  been  increasingly 
manifest,  so  that,  if  there  be  anything  in  this  allega- 
tion, the  famines  of  the  earlier  should  have  been 
more  serious  than  those  of  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  But  the  contention  of  the 
critics  is  that  the  contrary  has  been  the  case. 

Nor  is  there  any  support  whatever  for  the  assertion 
that  the  most  highly  assessed  parts  of  India  have  suf- 
fered most  severely,  a  contention  disproved  by  the 
Famine  Commission.  Indeed,  in  the  famine  of  1899- 
1900  the  districts  most  severely  affected  had  been 
exempted  from  paying  their  increased  assessments, 
and  the  districts  that  suffered  most  in  1896-1897 
were  such  as  for  years  had  known  no  enhance- 

81 


INDIA 

ment.  A  low  land-tax,  like  the  few  pence  an  acre 
paid  on  unirrigated  land  in  the  Deccan,  is  the  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  a  poor  peasantry,  near 
the  margin  of  subsistence.  So  fallacious  is  the 
inference  that  a  low  assessment  means  a  prosperous 
peasantry.  But  where  the  land  is  rich,  and  the 
assessment  light,  are  the  people  there  famine-proof? 
Gujerat  answers  this  description  as  well  as  any  part 
of  India,  and  there  was  the  pressure  most  severe 
in  1899-1900,  when  the  Deccan  cultivator  stood  up 
erect  under  the  loss  of  his  crops,  and  the  compara- 
tively rich  Gujerati  succumbed,  when  the  crop  fail- 
ure affected  400,000  square  miles,  25,000,000  of 
people  in  British  India  and  75,000,000  in  native 
states,  the  loss  in  crops  being  equivalent  to  £50,- 
000,000  sterling.  The  Government  spent  upwards 
of  £10,000,000  on  relief,  and  not  much  more  than 
2  per  cent,  of  the  population  affected  succumbed, 
more  from  privation  and  disease  than  starvation. 
Then  it  is  asserted  that  the  increase,  only  2.42  per 
cent,  of  the  population  between  1891  and  1901,  is  a 
proof  of  far  greater  mortality,  since  between  1881 
and  1891  there  was  an  increase  of  11.2  per  cent. 
But  who  is  in  a  position  to  say  that  11.2  per  cent, 
is  the  normal  rate  of  increase  of  the  Indian  popula- 
tion, as  to  which  we  know  nothing,  and  have  only 
two  or  three  counts  to  place  to  our  credit.  The 
Central  Provinces,  twice  desolated  by  the  severest 
visitations,  showed  a  fall  of  8  per  cent.,  while  in  ante- 
British  days  it  would  have  been  nothing  exceptional 
had  half  the  population,  under  similar  circumstances, 

82 


disappeared.  In  Madras,  the  province  to  which, 
in  complete  ignorance  of  the  facts,  the  Congress 
school  of  critics  has  imputed  an  assessment  excep- 
tionally severe,  the  increase  in  the  population  at 
last  Census  was  the  highest  —  namely,  7.4  per  cent. 
To  determine  the  normal  rate  of  increase  in  India, 
excluding  the  results  of  monsoon  failures,  would  be 
to  eliminate  what  is  a  regular  feature  recurring  at 
irregular  intervals,  but  never  known  to  have  been 
absent  from  one  part  or  another  of  the  congeries  of 
countries  we  call  India  for  more  than  a  short  term 
of  years.  It  is  unfortunate  that  crop  failure  is 
invariably  described  as  famine.  Tracts  in  which 
there  are  scarcity  and  distress  of  varying  degrees 
of  intensity  are  alike  called  famine-stricken.  The 
State,  in  its  efforts  to  prevent  famine  laying  hold 
of  the  people,  long  before  acute  distress  prevails 
brings  into  operation  its  relief  code,  or  rules  for  the 
prevention  of  famine,  commonly  called  the  Famine 
Code,  and  in  any  province  in  which  these  preventive 
measures  are  brought  into  force,  famine  is  said  to 
prevail.  Those  who  think  the  Indian  administration 
enslaves  and  starves  the  Indians  are  also  under 
the  impression  that  when  6,000,000,  or  2  per  cent, 
of  the  population  of  India,  were,  in  1899-1900,  in 
receipt  of  relief,  6,000,000  were  starving,  instead  of 
being  saved  from  starvation,  and  it  would  be  useless 
to  point  out  that  a  slightly  larger  percentage  —  2.2 
—  of  the  population  of  England  and  Wales  is  annu- 
ally in  receipt  of  aid  from  the  State. 

It  is  devoutly  to  be  hoped  that  this  so-called 

83 


INDIA 

Famine  Code  will  never  degenerate  into  a  Poor  Law, 
from  the  necessity  for  which  India  is  saved  by  the 
abounding  charity  of  the  people.  Their  humane  and 
civilised  character  enables  their  rulers  to  dispense 
with  a  Poor  Law  in  normal  seasons,  and  the  latter 
in  turn  have  declared,  and  take  no  credit  for  declar- 
ing, that  the  whole  resources  of  the  State  are 
available  for  saving  the  lives  of  the  distressed.  So 
successful  is  this  policy  that  in  1899-1900,  in  the 
locality  affected  above  all  others  by  one  of  the  most 
widespread  scarcities  ever  experienced,  in  the  Cen- 
tral Provinces,  the  death  rate  actually  remained 
round  about  the  normal  figure.  Among  many  de- 
ductions to  be  drawn  from  these  visitations  is  the 
fact  that  the  peasant  proprietors  of  Madras  are 
better  able  to  pay  their  nominally  higher  assessment 
than  are  their  brethren  in  Bombay  to  pay  their 
nominally  lower  rate.  It  is  pretty  clear  that  it  is 
private  debts,  often  50  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the 
produce,  which  press,  and  not  the  Government 
assessment  of  7  per  cent,  which  presses  so  hardly 
upon  the  cultivator.  It  is,  moreover,  a  fact,  to 
which  many  unprejudiced  observers  have  testified 
from  personal  experience,  that  the  administration 
of  famine  relief  has  now  reached  such  a  pitch  of 
perfection  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  workers  on 
the  famine  relief  works  do  not  show  signs  of  emacia- 
tion and  cannot  be  distinguished  from  ordinary 
labourers.  The  object  of  the  Government  is  to  pro- 
vide them  with  work  and  food  before  they  deteri- 
orate in  condition. 

84 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

Famine  photographs,  which,  with  sinister  objects, 
are  circulated,  are  generally  those  of  the  occupants 
of  the  poor-houses,  in  which  are  gathered  together  in 
times  of  scarcity  the  waifs  and  strays,  the  halt,  the 
lame,  the  blind,  the  feeble  and  infirm,  the  flotsam 
and  jetsam  of  a  teeming  Oriental  population.  It 
is  interesting  to  know  that  the  periods  of  scarcity, 
which  are  held  by  ignorant  or  malevolent  critics  to 
prove  the  failure  of  British  rule,  have  conclusively 
demonstrated  what  otherwise  might  be  well  regarded 
as  open  to  argument  —  namely,  the  superiority  of 
direct  British  administration  to  that  of  the  protected 
native  states,  which,  during  the  last  great  visita- 
tion, were  tried  and  found  wanting.  Indeed,  before 
that,  in  1897-1898,  the  chiefs  of  Rajputana  and  Cen- 
tral India  had  not  proved  very  successful  in  caring 
for  their  own  distressed  people.  No  one  could 
be  naturally  more  prone  to  prefer  Indian  adminis- 
tration under  general  British  supervision  to  direct 
British  administration  than  one  who  has,  himself, 
had  the  good  fortune  to  be  British  Resident  in  two 
conspiciously  well-governed  native  states,  and  who 
has  made  a  study  of  native  languages,  and  associa- 
tion with  the  natives  of  India,  the  chief  object 
of  his  long  service  in  India.  But  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  evidence  of  private  and  official  wit- 
nesses, the  reports  of  newspaper  correspondents,  and 
the  Census  figures,  all  alike  testify  to  the  immense 
superiority  of  our  own  system  of  relief,  if,  indeed, 
any  system  can  be  said  to  exist  outside  British  lim- 
its. In  the  first  place,  we  can  redress  the  balance 
-  -  85 


INDIA 

by  calling  on  a  rich  to  feed  a  poor  province,  which 
a  single  financial  unit  cannot  do.  In  the  second 
place,  the  British  Government  has  a  positive  genius 
for  forethought  and  bandobast,  or  tie  and  twist  — 
an  Indian  word,  meaning  arrangement,  but  the 
inward  expressiveness  of  which  no  translation  can 
convey.  The  grim  realities  of  actual  starvation 
were  almost  confined  in  our  districts  to  the  hill 
tribes,  and  to  the  occupants  of  poor  houses  and 
relief  works,  which  were  flooded  with  refugees, 
already  past  aid,  from  native  states.  Not  that  the 
British  Government  accepts  no  responsibility  for 
such  states.  It  does,  and  laid  it  down  as  a  principle 
that  it  could  not  allow  the  lives  of  thousands  to  be 
jeopardised  by  the  caprice  of  their  ruler.  It  is 
characteristic  of  a  certain  school  of  critics  that  Mr. 
Hyndman  should  have  written  at  this  period:  "We 
see  by  looking  at  the  great  native  states  that  our 
system  is  the  real  cause  of  the  ruin  we  deplore. 
Scarcity  in  their  case  seldom  deepens  into  famine!" 
What  shall  be  said  of  the  equal  ignorance  of  those 
who  glibly  assert  that  famines  were  less  frequent 
and  less  disastrous  before  the  days  of  British  rule. 
Indeed,  it  is  true  that  fights  with  famine  have  been 
more  frequent  in  our  time,  for  our  predecessors 
accepted  these  visitations  as  fatalities.  Hindoos 
do  not  write  history,  and  Mohammedan  historians, 
who  omitted  nothing  to  the  credit  of  the  kings,  who 
paid  them  for  their  chronicles,  have  not  recorded 
that  they  made  any  effort  to  counteract  the  effects 
of  failure  of  seasons.  A  certain  amount  of  informa- 

86 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

tion  on  this  subject  can  be  gathered,  however,  from 
Ferishta,  Babar,  Tavernier,  Bernier,  Dow,  Elphin- 
stone,  and  Elliott,  and  after  a  careful  perusal  of  these 
works,  and  after  inquiring  into  the  subject,  not  only 
in  India,  but  in  other  Oriental  countries  —  such 
as  Persia,  China,  Turkey,  Japan,  and  Korea  —  I 
have  gathered  the  impression  that,  generally  speak- 
ing, the  tax-collectors  of  Eastern  are  not  more  but 
less  strict  than  those  of  European  Governments, 
and  that  the  enormously  high  assessments  of  former 
times  in  India,  and  elsewhere,  were  only  possible 
because  they  were  spasmodically  and  irregularly 
collected.  However  that  may  be,  in  1596,  under 
Akbar,  such  famine  prevailed  that  cannibalism 
became  general,  burial  was  abandoned,  and  pesti- 
lence raged  unchecked.  In  1615  and  1616  there  was 
another  great  visitation,  when  wild  beasts  dragged 
the  starving  villagers  from  their  huts  and  devoured 
them  in  the  streets.  In  Kattywar  and  Gujerat 
there  were  famines  in  1559,  1631,  1647,  1681,  1686, 
1718,  1723,  1747,  1751,  1759,  1760,  1774,  1780,  and 
1785.  Of  such  severity  were  these  visitations  that, 
compared  with  them,  the  fourteen  so-called  famines 
which  occurred  between  1880  and  1897  were  merely 
local  scarcities.  In  the  Central  Provinces  there  are 
records  of  famines  in  1771,  1803,  1818,  1819,  1825, 
1826,  1832,  1833,  1834,  1868/and  1869.  Upon  these 
occasions  wheat  sometimes  sold  at  3  or  4  seers  of 
two  pounds,  for  a  rupee,  and  rice  at  2  or  3  seers  a 
rupee,  whereas  in  1899-1900  the  average  prices  in 
the  Central  Provinces,  the  most  afflicted  part  of 

87 


INDIA 

India,  were  15  and  14  seers  respectively,  and  after 
the  famine  of  1877-1878,  in  that  province,  the  culti- 
vation only  decreased  by  5  per  cent.  In  the  Mahab- 
harata,  the  great  epic  poem  of  the  palmy  days  of 
India,  written  before  its  sacred  soil  had  been  invaded 
by  Mohammedans  or  Europeans,  a  famine  of  twelve 
years  duration  is  recorded,  in  which  Brahmins  were 
driven  to  devour  dogs.  Should  Burma  ever  again 
suffer,  it  will,  no  doubt,  be  argued  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  India  proper,  so  in  regard  to  its  newest 
province,  British  maladministration  has  reduced  the 
previously  prosperous  people  to  such  straits.  But 
Pimenta,  writing  of  Pegu  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
says:  "The  wayes  and  fields  were  full  of  skulls  and 
bones  of  wretched  Pagans,  who  were  brought  to 
such  miserie  and  want,  that  they  did  eat  man's 
flesh  and  kept  publike  shambles  thereof.  Parents 
abstained  not  from  their  children,  and  children  de- 
voured their  parents.  The  stronger  by  force  preyed 
on  the  weaker,  and  if  any  were  but  skinne  and  bone, 
yet  did  they  open  their  intrailes  to  fill  their  owne, 
and  picked  out  their  brainse.  The  women  went 
about  the  streets  with  knives  to  the  like  butcherly 
purposes."  To  this  day  the  skull  famine,  so  called 
because  the  countryside  was  littered  with  skulls,  is 
remembered  in  India. 

No  doubt  our  Government  has  not  always  been 
successful  in  treating  these  calamities.  In  the  earlier 
part  of  last  century  we  hardly  attempted  the  colossal 
task  now  so  successfully  achieved.  In  Madras  in 
1833-1834,  in  Madras  and  Mysore  in  1877-1878, 

88 


THE   LAND    SYSTEM 

and  in  Orissa  in  1866,  the  mortality  was  very  high, 
but  the  science  of  famine  prevention  was  then  in  its 
infancy,  and  it  is  that  science,  and  not  famine,  which 
is  the  invention  of  the  British  Government.  The 
vernacular  press  often  refers  to  India  as  the  only 
country  in  the  world  ruled  by  a  wealthy  and  civilised 
Government  subject  to  periodical  famines,  but  there 
was  a  time  when  these  visitations  were  frequent  in 
Europe,  and  the  poor  ate  roots  and  acorns.  These 
conditions  have  passed  away  with  improved  agri- 
culture, the  development  of  commercial  credit, 
removal  of  restrictions  upon  the  natural  course  of 
trade,  and  the  opening  of  increased  facilities  of 
transport.  Yet  the  critics  of  Government,  amongst 
whom  in  this  behalf  is  an  ex-Chief  Commissioner, 
actually  accuse  improved  communications  of  con- 
tributing to  cause  famine,  and  to  the  ruin  of  the 
indigenous  native  transport  trade,  and  so,  it  is 
presumed,  to  the  greater  sufferings  of  the  victims 
of  crop  failure!  Nor,  in  fact,  have  these  visitations 
by  any  means  ceased  to  afflict  Europe.  In  1891 
Russia  suffered  from  an  extremely  widespread  fam- 
ine, and  the  Czar's  Government,  while  it  did  infi- 
nitely less  than  ours  does,  obtained  greater  credit 
owing  to  the  feeling  abstention  on  the  part  of  the 
Emperor,  court,  and  capital  from  all  amusements 
while  the  people  were  distressed.  During  the  last 
scarcity  in  the  Central  Provinces,  in  some  districts 
40  per  cent,  of  the  population  were  on  relief  works, 
but  it  was  difficult  to  tell  that  those  upon  relief  were 
other  than  ordinary  cultivators.  Meanwhile,  suffer- 

89 


INDIA 

ers  flocked  in  their  thousands  from  native  states  to 
British  works,  and  those  states  lost  in  the  last  ten 
years  about  the  same  proportion  of  their  population 
as  the  British  districts  gained.  So  complete  and 
comprehensive  is  the  famine  relief  of  these  days  that 
the  question  arises  to  what  extent  the  poorest  should 
be  fed  out  of  taxes  paid  by  the  poor  for  the  rich, 
and  notably  the  landlords,  who  support  the  Con- 
gress movement,  do  not  contribute  their  fair  share, 
and  there  is  no  Indian  middle  class  to  be  remorse- 
lessly bled  by  the  tax-gatherer.  It  was  possible  for 
families  to  earn  on  relief  works  25  per  cent,  more 
than  the  average  agriculturist's  income.  The  Com- 
missioner of  the  northern  division  of  Bombay,  Sir  F. 
Lely,  now  a  member  of  the  Indian  Decentralisation 
Commission,  attributes  the  intensity  of  the  distress 
in  Gujerat  to  the  fact  that  in  a  long  period  of  pros- 
perity the  people  had  acquired  expensive  habits  and 
had  become  unfit  to  endure  poverty,  so  little  were 
they  brought  down  to  poverty  by  previous  taxation. 
Some  friendly  critics  maintain  that  a  measure  restrict- 
ing land  alienation  should  be  enacted  for  all  India, 
but  it  will  be  necessary  first  to  study  the  results  of 
the  Land  Act  already  passed  for  the  Punjaub,  for 
such  legislation  reduces  the  cultivator's  credit,  and 
could  probably  be  evaded  by  the  money-lender.  Cir- 
cumstances, moreover,  differ  in  different  provinces, 
and  agrarian  legislation  has  been  by  no  means  suc- 
cessful in  the  Deccan.  If,  again,  the  revenue  were 
made  to  depend  entirely  on  the  ram,  whence  would 
come  money  in  rainless  years  to  feed  the  victims 

90 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

of  rainlessness?  Some  would  say  by  supplementing 
the  finances  of  India'  by  a  grant  from  England, 
regardless  of  the  dictum  of  the  late  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  now  Lord  St.  Aldwyn,  that  the 
finances  of  India  are  in  an  infinitely  better  condition 
than  our  own.  The  fact  is  that  the  collection  of 
money  in  England  for  the  Mansion  House  Fund 
apparently  makes  it  impossible  for  the  British  pub- 
lic to  realise  that  want  of  funds  has  never  compelled 
the  Indian  Government  to  refuse  relief  to  a  single 
individual  applying  therefor,  or  to  relax  its  efforts 
to  force  help  upon  the  retiring  and  unwilling.  There 
is  no  reason  whatever  why  India  should  lose  her 
most  precious  possession,  her  financial  independence. 
Indeed,  Lord  Elgin  wisely  insisted  that  the  prov- 
ince of  private  charity,  as  distinguished  from  state 
relief,  should  be  unequivocally  laid  down  before  he 
undertook  to  receive  the  Mansion  House  money, 
which  was  used  for  such  comforts  and,  compara- 
tively speaking,  luxuries  as  the  Government  did  not 
think  could  properly  be  given  from  public  funds. 
The  introduction  of  usury  laws  is  also  urged,  but 
these,  indeed,  were  practically  adopted  when  the  In- 
dian Contract  Act  was  so  amended  as  to  describe  the 
agriculturist  as  a  person  entitled  to  special  protec- 
tion in  his  dealings  with  money-lenders.  Irrigation  of 
course  has  been  suggested  as  the  best  of  remedies, 
and  various  English  newspapers  have  eloquently 
described  the  tens  of  millions  of  acres  which  should 
be  rendered  independent  of  the  seasons.  Little 
notice  is  taken  of  the  fact  that  the  Government  of 

91 


INDIA 

India  has  spent  32  millions  sterling  upon  irrigation 
works,  for  which  capital  accounts  are  kept,  whereby 
17^  millions  of  acres  give  crops  worth  34  J  millions 
of  pounds,  and  has  in  hand  projects  which  will  irri- 
gate further  millions  of  acres.  It  is  an  absurd  con- 
tention that  while  the  Government  has  done  so 
much  it  is  responsible  for  famine  because  it  does  not 
further  do  what  financial  and  geographical  reasons 
forbid. 

So  far  as  the  mere  prevention  of  famine  goes, 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  successful  irrigation 
schemes  lead  to  a  proportionate  increase  in  the  popu- 
lation, and  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  Gov- 
ernment, regardless  of  levels  and  water  supply,  can 
extend  irrigation  at  a  remunerative  cost,  to  such  a 
degree  as  to  make  the  country  independent  of  failure 
of  the  rainfall.  Lord  Curzon  made  special  inqui- 
ries to  discover  what  additional  practicable  projects 
could  be  devised,  and  it  was  proved  that  the  field 
was  of  a  very  limited  extent.  The  real  remedy  is 
to  be  found  in  the  introduction  of  foreign  capital, 
which  the  present  agitation  must  necessarily  scare 
away;  in  the  development  of  the  material  resources 
of  the  country  and  the  removal  of  the  surplus 
population  from  the  overcrowded  occupation  of 
agriculture.  Tea  and  coffee  planting,  gold  and  coal 
mining,  and  cotton  spinning  should  be  encouraged; 
the  rules  and  regulations  which  restrict  enterprise 
should  be  still  further  relaxed;  obstacles  to  the 
movement  of  labour,  of  which  too  many  remain, 
should  be  abolished,  the  cheap  supply  of  labour 

92 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

alongside  the  raw  material  being  a  great  attraction 
for  the  capitalist  of  India,  which,  in  spite  of  its 
admitted  but  exaggerated  poverty,  absorbs  gold  and 
silver  to  the  value  of  upwards  of  £10,000,000  sterling 
per  annum.  Caste  in  no  way  handicaps  industrial 
operations.  On  the  contrary,  it  enormously  facili- 
tates the  organisation  of  labour.  Agricultural  dis- 
tress must  still  exist  in  a  country  dependent  upon 
the  monsoon,  but  in  modern  India  there  is  always 
sufficient  grain  to  eat,  and  the  object  is  the  creation 
of  economic  conditions  in  which  the  people  will  have 
the  money  with  which  to  buy  food.  Nevertheless, 
so  utterly  is  this  question  —  like  most  others 
relating  to  India  —  misunderstood  in  England,  that 
the  old-world  expedient  of  storing  grain  is  seriously 
recommended,  while  what  the  people  want  is  the 
money  they  can  only  get  by  selling  what,  in  former 
times,  was  stored,  because  there  were  no  communi- 
cations and  no  markets.  As  to  the  so-called  drain, 
most  of  it  is  incurred  as  interest ; —  absurdly  low  from 
the  Indian  point  of  view  —  upon  capital  expended 
for  the  benefit  of  that  country.  It  is  of  course  de- 
sirable that  the  amount  should  be  kept  as  low  as 
possible,  and  the  heavy  charges  for  pensions  and 
non-effective  services  are  certainly  open  to  criticism. 
The  European  civil  agency  could,  in  some  provinces 
at  any  rate,  be  reduced.  Few  English  judges  are 
really  wanted,  and  the  Egyptian  system  would  serve 
as  a  useful  model,  but  the  one  man  who  cannot  be 
spared  is  the  British  soldier,  who  makes  it  possible 
for  so  few  civilians  to  manage  so  many  millions. 

93 


INDIA 

The  secretariat  could  probably  be  reduced,  for  it 
can  hardly  be  seriously  contended  that  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  that  the  reports  of  an  officer  getting 
2000  rupees  a  month  should  be  handed  on  to  others 
upon  3000  or  4000  rupees  a  month,  with  assistants 
at  1000  or  2000  rupees  a  month,  before  they  are 
referred  to  a  greater  mandarin  at  5000  or  6000 
rupees  a  month,  who  can  refer  the  matter  to  a  col- 
league upon  the  same  stipend,  when,  if  the  latter 
differs  with  him,  or  if  a  secretary  chooses,  the  file, 
plena  jam  margine,  scriptus  et  in  tergo  nee  dum  finitus, 
will  finally  come  before  the  head  of  the  administra- 
tion. There  is,  at  any  rate  in  the  old  Presidencies 
of  Madras  and  Bombay,  too  much  secretariat  rule, 
and  any  superfluous  hands  would  be  better  occupied 
in  district  administration.  But  such  savings  would 
not  seriously  affect  the  situation.  The  Government 
of  India  has  pointed  out  how  imperfectly  its  critics 
realise  the  smallness  of  the  land  revenue  compared 
with  enormous  losses  resulting  from  the  failure  of 
crops.  In  the  Central  Provinces  during  seven  years 
the  loss  in  this  behalf  has  been  equivalent  to  the 
total  land  revenue  for  fifty  years.  It  is  clear  that 
any  reductions  that  could  be  effected  in  establish- 
ments, and  even  under  the  greater  head  of  land- 
revenue  demand,  would  never  enable  the  community 
to  withstand  losses  of  such  dimensions,  nor  indeed 
is  it  true  that  abatement  of  taxation  results  in 
provident  saving  on  the  part  of  the  people.  It  is 
notorious,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  exact  reverse  is 
the  case.  Excessive  leniency  encourages  the  trans- 

94 


THE    LAND    SYSTEM 

fer  of  the  soil  to  money-lenders,  landlords,  and  mid- 
dlemen, who  at  once  swallow  up  the  profits  intended 
for  the  cultivator.  It  is  also  established  that  the 
chief  sufferers  at  famine  time  are  not  those  who  pay 
assessment  to  Government  or  rent  to  landlords  but 
labourers  on  the  land,  who  are  not  immediately 
affected  by  the  revenue  assessment.  The  last  Fam- 
ine Commission,  presided  over  by  Sir  Antony  Mac- 
Donnell  —  than  whom  no  Indian  administrator  has 
been  a  more  active  friend  to  the  tenant  farmers 
and  peasant  proprietors  —  recorded  that  "the  pres- 
sure of  land  revenue  is  not  severe,  the  incidence  on 
the  gross  produce  of  the  soil  being  light,  and  not 
such  as  to  interfere  with  agricultural  efficiency  in 
ordinary  years,  though  there  is  a  distinct  need  for 
leniency  in  adverse  seasons."  Whilst  crop  failure 
is  the  primary  cause,  there  are  other  factors  which 
cause  poverty  and  indebtedness  in  India,  such  as 
the  ever-increasing  sub-divisions  of  holdings,  due  to 
land  hunger,  and  attachment  to  his  own  locality  on 
the  part  of  the  cultivator;  the  decline  of  village 
industries,  rack-renting  on  the  part  of  certain  land- 
lords; expensive  litigation,  and  extravagance  on  the 
occasion  of  marriage  and  other  festivities. 

The  Government  of  India  has  long  had  under 
consideration  the  desirability  of  a  gradual  and  pro- 
gressive enforcement  of  such  increases  in  assessments 
as  it  is  thought  desirable  to  effect  on  resettlement. 
Wherever  a  large  enhancement  is  necessary,  endeav- 
ours are  made  to  spread  it  over  a  period  of  years,  and 
this  has  already  been  arranged  in  several  provinces, 

95 


INDIA 

but  in  no  case  can  an  enhancement  be  welcome,  and 
landholders  in  India,  perhaps  more  than  elsewhere, 
rapidly  raise  their  standards  of  living  to  suit  their 
resources  for  the  time  being.  In  theory,  Government 
assessments  represent  the  sum  that  may  fairly  be 
demanded  on  an  average  of  seasons,  but  it  is  assessed 
upon  the  assumption  that  the  cultivator  will  save 
from  the  surplus  in  a  good  to  meet  the  deficit  in 
a  bad  year.  This  assumption,  however,  rests  upon 
a  false  basis,  and  the  rigid  demand  of  the  land  reve- 
nue must  add  materially  to  the  hardships  of  the  poor. 
In  tracts  where  great  variations  from  the  average 
produce  are  not  frequent,  this  hardship  may  not 
be  felt,  but  where,  as  so  often  happens,  fluctuations 
are  common  and  large,  the  rigid  demand  of  a  fixed 
assessment  cannot  be  other  than  disastrous.  In 
Madras  no  revenue  is  charged  upon  irrigable  land, 
the  produce  of  which  has  not  ripened  owing  to  fail- 
ure of  the  water  supply,  and  in  the  Punjaub  partial 
failure  to  ripen,  from  the  same  cause,  entitles  the 
cultivator  to  a  proportionate  abatement.  In  Burma 
and  Assam  unirrigated  lands  are  exempt  from  pay- 
ment of  assessment  if  left  unsown,  but  elsewhere, 
lands  dependent  upon  the  rainfall  for  water  pay  a 
fixed  and  very  low  assessment,  irrespective  of  their 
produce.  The  desirability  of  making  collection  more 
elastic  in  respect  of  these  lands  has  frequently  en- 
gaged the  attention  of  the  administration,  and  it 
must  be  admitted  that  an  assessment  varying  with 
the  out-turn,  for  such  a  vast  area,  would  be  difficult 
to  work,  would  throw  great  power  into  the  hands  of 

96 


THE   LAND    SYSTEM 

subordinates,  and  would  deprive  the  people  of  the 
object  they  now  have  in  saving  for  a  rainless  day. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  an  Indian 
cultivator  to  be  thrifty  and  saving,  and  it  is  a  highly 
satisfactory  circumstance  that  the  Government  of 
India  has  declared  that  it  is  not  satisfied  that,  in 
well-known  tracts,  in  which  the  crops  are  liable  to 
violent  fluctuations,  a  fluctuating  assessment  should 
not  be  introduced;  though  any  alteration  in  the 
assessment  is  in  conflict  with  the  terms  of  the  exist- 
ing contract,  by  which  the  landholder  undertakes 
the  liability  for  loss  in  return  for  an  expectation  of 
profit.  It  may,  upon  the  whole,  be  regarded  as 
sufficiently  proved  that  the  permanent  settlement 
is  no  protection  whatever  against  famine,  that  50 
per  cent,  of  the  assets  is  the  most  ever  demanded 
from  landlords,  that  the  State  frequently  intervenes 
to  protect  tenants  from  such  landlords,  and  to  limit 
the  rent  they  demand,  and  that  in  areas  where  the 
State  is  paid  directly  by  the  cultivator  the  proposal 
to  fix  the  assessment  at  one-fifth  of  the  gross  pro- 
duce would  always  largely  increase,  and  in  several 
provinces  would  double,  the  existing  Government 
demand.  It  may  further  be  held  to  be  proved  that 
the  policy  of  long-term  settlements  is  being  extended, 
that  the  principle  of  making  allowance  for  improve- 
ments is  generally  in  force,  that  the  disturbance 
connected  with  a  new  settlement  is  diminished,  and 
that  over  assessment  is  not  a  general  or  widespread 
source  of  poverty  and  indebtedness  in  India,  and 
cannot  be  regarded  as  a  cause  of  famine. 

97 


INDIA 

The  Government  of  India  is  further  prepared  to 
concede  more  elasticity  in  collection,  and  to  resort 
in  a  still  greater  degree  to  reduction  of  assessment, 
in  cases  of  local  deterioration,  even  where  such 
reduction  cannot  be  claimed  under  the  terms  of 
settlement.  Notwithstanding,  the  complete  answer 
which  this  affords  to  the  baseless  charge  that  the 
Indian  administration  grinds  down  the  faces  of  the 
poor,  the  proposal  to  settle  with  each  holder  is  worthy 
of  the  consideration  of  the  Government,  whose 
present  system,  however,  was  inherited  from  its 
predecessors  in  title,  from  whose  practice  it  only 
differs  in  that  it  is  infinitely  more  moderate  and 
favourable  to  the  cultivators  concerned. 


98 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   GOVERNMENT   OF   INDIA 

IN  accordance  with  the  lines  laid  down  for  this 
work,  after  briefly  surveying  the  past  history 
of  the  country,  showing  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  present  dispensation  arose  and  the 
respects  in  which  it  chiefly  differs  from  its  prede- 
cessors, it  is  necessary  to  give  a  brief  and  popular 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  British  admin- 
istration of  India  works.  The  Hindoo  system  de- 
scribed in  the  Code  of  Manu  is  an  absolute  monarchy, 
and  the  manner  in  which  the  king  passed  his  day, 
as  laid  down  in  the  Code,  is  practically  that  adopted 
to  this  day  by  the  ruling  chiefs  in  Travancore  and 
Cochin,  two  old-world  states,  which  have  never  been 
invaded  by  strangers  from  the  north,  and  which  are 
therefore  a  mirror  of  ancient  India  and  of  great 
and  exceptional  interest  to  the  student  and  his- 
torian. The  villagers  enjoyed  a  large  measure  of 
autonomy  by  immemorial  custom,  and  of  the  various 
criticisms  which  have  been  passed  upon  our  system 
of  government  none  are  more  weighty  than  those 
which  condemn  the  partial  destruction  of  the  village 
system,  inevitable  though  that  is  in  view  of  the 
extension  of  scientific,  probably  far  too  scientific, 
administration.  Armies,  the  size  of  which  is  prob- 

99 


INDIA 

ably  exaggerated,  but  which  no  doubt  were  large, 
were  maintained  to  defend  each  kingdom,  which 
was  separated  into  military  divisions,  each  division 
supporting  a  body  of  troops.  The  revenue  consisted 
of  a  share  in  the  produce  of  the  land,  taxes  on  com- 
merce and  on  shopkeepers,  and  a  forced  service  of  a 
day  a  month  by  all  accustomed  to  manual  labour, 
and  it  has  already  been  shown  that  the  people  were, 
according  to  accounts  given  by  early  travellers,  in 
all  probability  fairly  contented.  Under  the  Mogul 
administration,  the  revenue  collector  was  magistrate 
and  police  officer  as  well  as  revenue  official,  and  this 
system,  against  which  an  outcry  is  now  being  made 
by  critics  of  the  Congress  School,  has  survived  in 
the  main  to  the  present  day.  Sir  Courtenay  Ilbert, 
the  latest  writer,  has  divided  the  history  of  British 
India  into  three  periods  —  from  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  the  East  India  Company  as  a  trading  cor- 
poration alternately  coerced  and  cajoled  the  Indian 
powers  and  fought  with  its  rivals  the  French  and 
Dutch;  from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  which  period 
the  Company  acquired  and  consolidated  its  terri- 
tory, sharing  its  power  with  the  Crown  in  progres- 
sively increasing  proportions  and,  pari  passu,  being 
deprived  of  its  mercantile  functions  and  privileges, 
and  the  third  period  after  the  Mutiny  of  1857, 
when  the  remaining  powers  of  the  Company  were 
transferred  to  the  Crown.  Passing  reference  has 
been  made  to  the  conquests  of  Lord  Clive,  and 

100 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    INDIA 

during  the  troublous  period  in  which  Britain  was  at 
war  with  France,  Holland,  Spain,  and  America,  India 
was  preserved  by  one  of  the  greatest  men  England 
has  ever  produced  —  Warren  Hastings.  The  con- 
quests and  annexations  of  Lords  Cornwallis,  Wel- 
lesley,  Hastings,  and  Dalhousie  have  already  been 
briefly  reviewed,  and  subsequent  to  the  Mutiny  the 
history  of  India  is  a  record  of  development,  the  only 
important  territorial  addition  made  being  Upper 
Burma,  acquired  in  1886.  It  is  now  time,  therefore, 
to  explain  how  the  present  system  of  government 
arose,  and  what  that  system  is. 

By  Lord  North's  regulating  Act  of  1773  a  Gover- 
nor-General and  four  Councillors  were  appointed  to 
administer  Bengal,  and  Madras  and  Bombay  were 
placed  in  subordination  to  the  former  Presidency. 
By  Pitt's  Act  of  1784  the  administration  of  the  three 
Presidencies  was  placed  under  a  Governor  and  three 
Councillors,  of  whom  the  Commander-in-Chief  was 
one,  the  control  of  the  Governor-General  in  Council 
being  maintained  and  extended.  The  Charter  Act 
of  1813  withdrew  the  Company's  monopoly  except 
in  regard  to  tea  and  the  China  trade,  and  the  Charter 
Act  of  1833  put  an  end  to  its  commercial  business 
and  vested  the  entire  civil,  military,  and  legislative 
power  in  the  Governor-General  in  Council.  In  1836 
the  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  the  North- West, 
now  United,  Provinces,  and  in  1854  that  of  Bengal, 
was  created,  the  latter  province  till  then  having 
been  directly  administered  by  the  Governor-General. 
The  original  intention  was  to  make  Bengal  a  Presi- 

101 


INDIA 

dency,  with  a  Governor  in  Council,  which  forms 
the  justification  for  a  claim  by  the  Congress  party 
that  this  constitution  should  now  be  conceded. 
Those  who  support  this  request  can  hardly  have 
been  at  the  pains  to  learn  that  the  Governor-in- 
Council  constitution  is  now  anomalous  and  unworthy 
of  imitation,  since  it  has  lost  all  signs  of  independence 
other  than  outward  pomp  and  the  power  of  corre- 
sponding directly  upon  unimportant  subjects  with 
the  Secretary  of  State.  More  than  this,  since  the 
abolition  of  the  office  of  provincial  Commander-in- 
Chief,  the  Governor  possesses  no  power  beyond  that 
of  overriding  his  Council  in  cases  of  grave  importance, 
which  never  can  arise  in  a  subordinate  administra- 
tion in  telegraphic  communication  with  Calcutta, 
and,  even  with  his  casting  vote,  he  can  only  equal 
two  votes  of  his  colleagues,  so  that  he  might  prac- 
tically be,  throughout  his  term  of  office,  as  powerless 
as  Warren  Hastings  for  a  time  was.  It  is  far  more 
likely  that,  in  order  to  save  the  additional  expense 
entailed,  the  old  Presidencies  will  be  reduced  to  Lieu- 
tenant-Governorships than  that  the  latter  adminis- 
tration will  be  levelled  up,  if  indeed  it  be  an  ascent 
for  a  Lieutenant-Governor,  all  powerful  in  respect 
of  acts  within  the  administrative  competence  of  his 
Government,  to  become  a  Governor,  who  might  be 
readily  reduced  to  a  cipher  in  his  own  Council. 
That  the  men  are  so  much  better  than  the  system 
is  the  only  reason  why  the  now  three-legged  con- 
stitutions of  Madras  and  Bombay  continue  to  work 
in  an  admittedly  satisfactory  manner. 

102 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    INDIA 

The  transfer  to  the  Crown  in  1858  made  no  dif- 
ference except  that  the  Governor-General  became 
known  also  as  Viceroy,  though  the  title  has  no  stat- 
utory basis,  the  Governor-General  in  Council  being 
the  authority  responsible  for  the  entire  administra- 
tion of  British  India  and  for  the  control  of  the 
native  states.  Immediately  under  the  central  or 
supreme  Government,  known  as  the  Government 
of  India,  are  foreign  relations,  defence,  taxation, 
currency,  debt,  tariffs,  post,  telegraphs,  and  rail- 
ways, and,  subject  to  its  control,  provincial  govern- 
ments are  responsible  for  internal  administration, 
the  assessment  and  collection  of  the  revenue,  irri- 
gation, and  communications.  So  complete  is  this 
control  that  no  new  appointment  can  be  created, 
except  of  a  very  minor  character,  by  provincial  gov- 
ernments ruling  over  perhaps  50,000,000  of  people; 
but  the  latter  have  their  own  budgets  and  the  ex- 
penditure of  shares  of  certain  items  of  revenue  raised 
within  their  own  limits.  The  shares  were  for- 
merly assigned  for  periods  of  five  years  and  formed 
the  subject  of  continual  controversy,  but  arrange- 
ments are  now  being  made  of  a  more  permanent 
character.  The  larger  provinces  have  their  own  leg- 
islative councils,  which,  however,  can  only  deal  with 
local  matters,  and  then  only  with  the  ultimate 
approval  of  the  Governor-General  in  Council.  The 
latter  authority  deals  directly  with  the  important 
native  states,  though  some  of  these  —  such  as  Pati- 
ala  and  Travancore  —  are  under  the  political  con- 
trol of  the  adjacent  provincial  administrations,  an 

103 


INDIA 

arrangement  which,  in  regard  to  the  latter  state 
at  any  rate,  leads  insensibly,  perhaps  inevitably, 
to  its  precious  individuality  being  impaired  and 
its  own  admirable  and  indigenous  systems  being 
forced  into  correspondence  with  those  obtaining  in 
neighbouring  British  districts. 

The  Council  of  the  Governor-General  consists  of 
six  ordinary  members  and  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
the  Governor-General  having  since  1786  the  power 
to  override  the  majority  of  his  Council  in  matters 
of  grave  importance,  a  power  which  has  hardly  ever 
been  exercised.  By  the  Councils  Act  of  1861  the 
distribution  of  the  work  of  the  various  departments 
among  the  members  was  legalised,  any  act  done 
under  orders  so  passed  being  deemed  to  be  the  act 
of  the  Governor-General  in  Council,  the  members 
of  which  under  this  system  fulfil  the  function  of 
Ministers  with  departmental  portfolios  —  viz.,  For- 
eign, Home,  Revenue  and  Agriculture,  Legislative, 
Finance,  Public  Works,  Commerce  and  Industry, 
Army  and  Military  Supply.  The  Governor-General 
takes  the  first,  Revenue  and  Public  Works  are  under 
another,  and  the  remaining  departments  have  each 
their  own  members.  At  the  head  of  each  depart- 
ment is  a  Secretary,  whose  position  is  somewhat 
similar  to  that  of  a  Permanent  Under-Secretary  of 
State  in  England.  The  disposal  of  work  by  members 
is  subject  to  reference  to  the  Governor-General  in 
cases  of  difference  of  opinion,  or  where  the  subjects 
are  of  exceptional  importance,  and  the  vote  of  the 
majority  prevails  when  matters  come  before  the 

104 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    INDIA 

collective  Council  at  its  weekly  meetings.  The 
Foreign  Department  deals  with  external  politics 
and  frontier  tribes,  controls  the  administration  of 
Ajmere,  the  new  North-West  Frontier  Province 
and  British  Beluchistan,  and  transacts  all  business 
connected  with  native  states,  which  cover  770,000 
square  miles,  with  a  population  of  64,000,000,  but 
few  of  which,  outside  Rajputana,  date  from  any 
earlier  period  than  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
chaos  in  which  the  Mogul  Empire  expired.  Some  of 
the  chiefs,  as,  for  instance,  the  Nizam  of  Hyderabad 
and  the  Maharaja  of  Travancore,  coin  money,  tax 
their  subjects,  and  inflict  capital  punishment  with- 
out appeal;  none  have  power  to  deal  with  external 
relations,  or,  without  restrictions,  with  Europeans. 
The  Home  Office  deals  with  general  administration, 
law  and  justice,  jails,  police,  education,  health,  and 
local  government,  with  which  the  provincial  govern- 
ments are  immediately  concerned.  It  also  super- 
vises the  ecclesiastical  department,  which  consists  of 
bishops  and  chaplains,  but  the  policy  of  Government 
is  one  of  the  strictest  religious  neutrality.  Mission- 
ary schools  are  eligible  for  educational  grants,  but 
these  are  solely  available  for  secular  instruction, 
and  may  be  obtained  on  similar  terms  by  schools 
of  any  religious  denomination.  The  department 
of  Revenue  and  Agriculture  administers  the  land 
revenue  and  the  forests,  deals  with  famine  relief, 
and  organises  agricultural  inquiries  and  experiments. 
Under  the  care  of  the  Finance  Department  are 
Imperial  and  Provincial  finance,  currency,  bank- 

105 


INDIA 

ing,  opium,  salt,  excise,  stamps,  assessed  taxes,  and 
the  general  supervision  of  the  accounts  of  the  whole 
empire.  The  department  of  Commerce  and  Indus- 
try was  formed  in  1905  to  facilitate  the  disposal  of 
questions  concerning  trade  and  manufactures,  and 
a  Railway  Board  was  created  at  the  same  time  to 
deal,  in  subordination  to  it,  with  matters  relating 
to  the  administration  of  the  railways  of  the  empire. 
Post  office,  telegraphs,  customs,  statistics,  shipping, 
emigration,  mines,  and  other  matters  have  also  been 
transferred  to  the  new  Commercial  member. 

The  chief  executive  officer  of  the  army  is  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  under  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  Governor-General  in  Council.  The  separate 
armies  of  Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay  were  abol- 
ished in  1895,  and  there  are  now  five  territorial 
divisions;  the 'northern,  eastern,  and  western  com- 
mands and  the  Burma  and  South  India  divisions. 
Up  till  1906  all  business  connected  with  the  army 
was  transacted  by  the  Military  Department,  which 
was  in  fact  the  War  Office,  but  in  that  year  it 
was  replaced  by  the  two  departments  of  Army  and 
Military  Supply,  the  former  of  which,  in  charge  of 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  deals  with  cantonments, 
volunteers,  and  all  matters  concerning  the  army, 
except  stores,  ordnance,  remounts,  medical  service, 
and  India  marine,  which  are  managed  by  the  de- 
partment of  Military  Supply.  These  changes  were 
effected  after  considerable  controversy,  and  though 
the  Viceroy  of  the  day,  Lord  Curzon,  reluctantly 
agreed  to  them  he  subsequently  resigned  office  over 

106 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF   INDIA 

the  question  of  the  officer  actually  to  be  appointed 
to  the  charge  of  Military  Supply. 

British  India  is  divided  into  thirteen  local  gov- 
ernments, two  of  which,  Madras  and  Bombay,  are 
Presidencies;  five  of  which,  Bengal,  the  United  Prov- 
inces of  Agra  and  Oudh,  the  Punjaub,  Burma,  and 
Eastern  Bengal  and  Assam  are  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernorships; four  of  which,  the  Central  Provinces, 
the  Andamans,  Coorg,  and  A j  mere  are  Chief -Com- 
missionerships,  and  the  new  North-West  Frontier 
Province  and  British  Beluchistan.  Of  these  local 
governments  two,  the  North-West  Frontier  Prov- 
ince and  the  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  Eastern 
Bengal  and  Assam,  were  created  during  the  vice- 
royalty  of  Lord  Curzon,  in  1901  and  1905  respectively. 
In  respect  of  the  former  territorial  unit  so  much 
controversy  has  arisen  that  it  will  be  necessary  to 
refer  to  the  matter  elsewhere,  and  in  regard  to  the 
latter,  though  considerable  differences  of  opinion 
existed,  there  is,  upon  the  whole,  a  most  unusual 
consensus  of  opinion  to  the  effect  that  the  step  taken 
was  necessary.  Sir  Mackworth  Young,  .the  Lieuten- 
ant-Governor  of  the  Punjaub,  from  which  certain 
districts  were  detached,  disapproved  of  the  formation 
of  this  territory,  and  of  adjoining  border  tracts  over 
which  we  exercised  direct  influence  since  1892,  into 
a  separate  administration,  but  he  pointed  out,  and 
so  did  Sir  Dennis  Fitzpatrick,  an  ex-Lieutenant- 
Go  vernor,  that  when  the  Punjaub  Government  dif- 
fered with  the  Government  of  India,  it  was  only  in 
the  weight  the  former  attached  to  the  difficulties 

107 


INDIA 

and  risks  inherent  in  some  forward  movement  with 
which  it  was  more  impressed  on  account  of  their 
closer  proximity.  The  Secretary  of  State  had  found 
the  existing  administrative  conditions  unsatisfactory, 
and  the  Lieutenant-Governor  agreed  that,  if  the 
elimination  of  the  Punjaub  Government  from  trans- 
frontier  control  was  desired,  the  creation  of  a  sep- 
arate administrative  unit  was  the  best  solution. 
Indeed,  a  series  of  eminent  authorities  had  expressed 
their  approval  of  some  such  scheme,  and  among 
them  were  Sir  B.  Frere,  Sir  H.  Durand,  Sir  J.  Browne, 
Sir  R.  Sandeman,  Sir  W.  Lockhart,  Sir  C.  Aitchison, 
Sir  G.  Chesney,  Lord  Lytton,  Lord  Lansdowne, 
and  Lord  Roberts,  who  indeed  was  actually  desig- 
nated head  of  a  new  Frontier  Province  by  Lord 
Lytton,  when  the  outbreak  of  the  Afghan  War  led 
to  the  retirement  of  the  latter  from  India.  The 
weighty  opinion  to  the  contrary  of  Lord  Elgin  must 
here  be  recorded,  and  further  notice  of  this  important 
question  must  be  deferred  to  a  chapter  on  frontier 
relations. 

By  whatever  designation  known,  the  head  of 
every  local  government  is  under  the  control  of  the 
Governor-General  in  Council,  Lieutenant-Governors 
differing  from  heads  of  provinces,  other  than  the  two 
Presidencies,  in  that  their  charges  are  constituted 
under  Act  of  Parliament.  By  the  Indian  Councils 
Acts  of  1861  a  legislative  council  may  be  created 
for  any  provinces  not  already  possessing  such,  and  a 
lieutenant-governor  may  be  appointed  to  such  prov- 
ince, and  under  an  Act  of  1854  the  Governor-General 

108 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF   INDIA 

in  Council  may,  with  the  sanction  of  the  Secretary 
of  State,  take  any  territory  in  British  India  under 
his  management  and  provide  for  its  administration. 
Burma  and  Eastern  Bengal  were  made  Lieutenant- 
Governorships  under  the  former,  and  Assam  in  1874, 
and  the  North- West  Frontier  Province  in  1901,  were 
separated  from  Bengal  and  the  Punjaub  respectively, 
under  the  latter  Act. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  refer  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  Home  Government  of  India  has  grown  up 
and  is  at  present  constituted.  The  regulating  Act 
of  1773  did  not  materially  alter  the  system  under 
which  the  Court  of  Directors  and  General  Court  of 
Proprietors  managed  the  business  and  other  affairs 
of  the  East  India  Company,  but  in  1784  Pitt  estab- 
lished the  Board  of  Control,  with  power  to  direct 
all  operations  and  concerns  relating  to  the  civil 
and  military  government  of  India,  the  President  of 
this  board  being  the  political  ancestor  of  the  Sec- 
retaries of  State  for  India,  and  the  real  effectual 
control  being  transferred  to  that  officer,  though 
patronage  and  other  powers  were  still  left  with  the 
Company.  This  system  obtained  till  1858,  when 
the  government,  territories,  and  revenues  of  India 
were  transferred  to  the  Crown.  Under  the  Act  of 
that  year  the  Secretary  of  State  is  made  the  con- 
stitutional adviser  of  the  Crown,  and  he  has  the 
power  of  issuing  orders  to  every  officer  in  India, 
including  the  Governor-General,  and  of  directing  all 
the  business  relating  to  India,  which  is  transacted 
in  the  United  Kingdom.  He  may  act  without  con- 

109 


INDIA 

suiting  his  Council  in  all  matters  in  respect  of  which 
he  is  not  required  by  statute  to  act  as  Secretary  of 
State  in  Council,  and  he  may  withhold  from  his 
Council  "secret"  communications  regarding  making 
war  or  peace,  negotiation  with  foreign  Powers,  and 
relations  with  native  states,  or  such  other  matters 
as  he  may  regard  as  urgent,  but  no  matter  for  which 
the  concurrence  of  the  Council  is  required  can  be 
treated  as  secret  or  urgent,  and  among  these  are 
the  making  of  any  grant  or  appropriation  of  the 
Indian  revenues.  The  members  of  the  Council  of 
India  are  appointed  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  and 
it  meets  once  a  week.  Five  members  are  a  quorum, 
and  a  subdivision  into  committees  facilitates  the  dis- 
posal of  the  business  of  which  it  disposes.  At  least 
nine  members  must  have  served  or  resided  in  India 
for  ten  years,  and  in  practice  the  most  distinguished 
of  the  retired  civil  servants  are  appointed,  men  whose 
presence  at  the  India  Office  gives  additional  weight 
and  authority  to  the  decisions  of  the  statesman  who 
occupies  for  the  time  being  the  great  office  of  Sec- 
retary of  State.  The  establishment  at  the  India 
Office  is  paid  out  of  the  revenues  of  India,  but  cannot 
be  increased  without  an  order  in  Council,  which  has 
to  be  laid  before  Parliament,  which  has  supreme 
authority  over  India,  as  over  all  other  dominions  of 
the  Crown.  In  practice,  however,  it  only  legislates 
for  India,  as  it  did  in  the  session  of  1907,  when 
the  political  constitution  requires  amendment,  or  the 
Secretary  of  State  needs  to  issue  a  loan.  The 
revenues  of  India  are  under  the  control  of  the  Gov- 

110 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF   INDIA 

eminent  of  India,  except  that  they  may  not  be 
applied  to  defraying  the  expenses  of  military  opera- 
tions beyond  the  frontier  without  the  consent  of 
both  Houses,  except  for  preventing  or  repelling  actual 
invasions,  or  upon  other  sudden  and  urgent  neces- 
sity. As  the  Home  charges,  including  the  Secretary 
of  State's  salary,  are  defrayed  from  Indian  reve- 
nues, they  are  not  included  in  the  annual  estimates 
laid  before  Parliament,  though  detailed  accounts  of 
receipts  and  disbursements,  and  a  report  on  the 
moral  and  material  progress  of  the  country,  have 
to  be  so  laid. 

As  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Control  is  the 
political  ancestor  of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India, 
so  are  the  writers,  factors,  and  merchants  the  offi- 
cial forebears  of  the  present  Indian  civil  servants, 
who  were  organised  upon  their  present  footing  by 
Lord  Cornwallis,  after  Clive  and  Hastings  had  in- 
creased their  pay  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the 
practice  of  supplementing  it  by  private  trade  and 
other  means.  Nominations  to  this  service  were 
made  by  the  directors,  and  in  1805  the  college  at 
Haileybury  was  established  for  the  training  of 
writers  before  they  went  to  India.  In  1853  this 
service,  for  which  the  principal  civil  offices  in  India 
were  reserved,  was  thrown  open  to  competitors, 
and  in  1858  the  college  at  Haileybury  was  closed. 
The  age  limits  are  from  22  to  24,  and  on  arrival 
in  India  every  civil  servant  becomes  a  magistrate 
of  the  lowest  class,  and  has  to  qualify  in  law  and 
languages  before  he  becomes  eligible  for  promotion. 

Ill 


INDIA 

Among  many  matters  concerning  India  misunder- 
stood in  England  is  the  extent  to  which  the  natives 
of  the  country  are  employed  in  its  administration. 
About  1200  Englishmen  are  engaged  in  the  civil 
government,  and  in  the  more  or  less  direct  control 
of  300,000,000  of  people,  and  excluding  864  civil 
charges  which  are  held  by  members  of  the  Indian 
Civil  Service,  and  excluding  all  posts  of  minor 
importance  held  by  natives,  there  are  3,700  persons 
holding  office  in  the  superior  branches  of  the  execu- 
tive and  judicial  services,  of  whom  only  100  are 
Europeans.  The  natives  manage  most  of  the  busi- 
ness connected  with  the  land,  dispose  of  most  of 
the  magisterial  business,  and  perform  nearly  all  the 
civil  judicial  work  throughout  the  empire.  Sir  John 
Strachey  pointed  out  that,  except  in  England,  there 
is  no  country  in  Europe  in  which  judicial  and  ex- 
ecutive officers  receive  such  large  salaries  as  are 
given  in  the  higher  ranks  of  the  native  civil  service. 
Appointments  made  in  India  carrying  a  salary  of  £31 
a  month  and  upwards  are  reserved  for  Indians,  and 
under  an  Act  of  Parliament  of  1870  selected  natives 
are  eligible  for  any  of  the  offices  formerly  reserved 
for  the  Indian  Civil  Service.  At  present  the  public 
service  is  divided  into  the  Indian  Civil  Service, 
recruited  in  England,  and  the  provincial  and  subor- 
dinate services,  recruited  in  India  from  amongst 
natives  of  India,  and  the  members  of  the  provincial 
services  enjoy  all  important  executive,  judicial,  and 
administrative  appointments  which  are  not  held  by 
the  smaller  Indian  Civil  Service  recruited  at  home. 


THE    GOVERNMENT   OF   INDIA 

They  are  also  eligible  for  offices  hitherto  reserved 
for  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  and  in  the  discharge 
of  their  functions,  and  more  particularly  their  judi- 
cial functions,  they  have  shown  conspicuous  abil- 
ity. Of  the  eight  great  provinces  of  India,  Bengal, 
with  upwards  of  50,000,000,  is  the  most  populous, 
though  the  United  Provinces,  with  48,000,000,  run 
it  close.  Burma,  with  170,000  square  miles,  is  the 
most  extensive  province,  followed  by  Bengal  with 
151,000  and  Madras  with  142,000.  Burma  is  as 
big  as  Sweden;  the  United  Provinces  contain  more 
inhabitants  than  Austria-Hungary,  and  the  popula- 
tion of  Madras  and  the  area  of  Bombay  are  about 
the  same  as  the  population  and  area  of  the  United 
Kingdom.  British  India  is  divided  into  250  dis- 
tricts, the  average  size  being  three-quarters  of  that 
of  Yorkshire,  and  the  average  number  of  inhabi- 
tants more  than  half  the  population  of  that  county. 
The  head  of  the  district,  the  Collector  and  Magis- 
trate, is  the  representative  of  Government  and  the 
principal  revenue  and  magisterial  officer.  He  per- 
forms all  duties  connected  with  the  land  and  land 
revenue  and  has  general  control  over  or  co-operates 
with  special  officers  in  the  management  of  the  police, 
public  works,  forests,  gaol,  sanitation,  and  education, 
besides  being  responsible  for  the  guidance  of  munici- 
pal and  district  boards,  for  the  peace  of  his  district, 
and  for  the  administration  of  the  Famine  Code  in 
times  of  scarcity.  He  is  assisted  by  subordinate 
civil  officers,  by  a  superintendent  of  police,  and  a 
civil  surgeon.  There  are  also  similar  sub-district 

113 


INDIA 

units,  in  charge  of  native  officers,  who  administer, 
very  satisfactorily,  charges  varying  from  400  to 
600  square  miles.  Below  them  again  are  the  vil- 
lage officers,  headman,  accountant,  watchman,  and 
so  on.  The  judicial  administration  consists  of  the 
High  Court,  the  District  and  Session  Courts,  the 
Court  of  the  District  Magistrate  and  his  assistants, 
and  the  Courts  of  the  Subordinate  Magistrates, 
while  there  are  also  Courts  of  District  Munsifs  and 
Subordinate  Judges  Courts,  both  of  which  only  try 
civil  cases.  The  law  administered  is  Hindoo,  founded 
upon  the  Institutes  of  Manu,  Mohammedan,  based 
on  the  Koran,  and  customary,  which  is  greater  than 
the  other  two,  but  the  growth  and  development  of 
which  has  been  somewhat  checked  by  the  more  or 
less  rigid  adherence  of  our  courts  to  written  Hindoo 
and  Mohammedan  law. 

The  idea  of  territorial  as  opposed  to  personal  law 
is  of  modern  and  European  origin.  It  has  always 
been  assumed  that  the  English  brought  their  own 
legal  system  with  them,  so  that  in  1726  their  com- 
mon law  was  introduced  into  the  three  Presidency 
towns.  In  1780  the  Declaratory'  Act  laid  it  down 
that  Hindoo  and  Mohammedan  laws  were  to  be 
applied  to  Hindoos  and  Mohammedans,  a  principle 
which  was  incorporated  into  subsequent  Acts,  though 
the  influence  of  Western  jurisdiction  has  necessarily 
largely  leavened  the  corpus  juris  administered  in 
India.  It  is,  however,  clearly  established  that  no  Act 
of  Parliament  passed  subsequently  to  1726  applies  to 
any  part  of  British  India  unless  expressly  extended 

114 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    INDIA 

thereto.  Brief  reference  has  already  been  made  to 
the  creation  and  constitution  of  the  Legislative 
Councils,  and  in  1892,  by  the  Indian  Council  Act, 
the  supreme  and  local  councils  were  enlarged,  the 
elective  element  was  tentatively  introduced,  and 
provisions  were  made  for  discussion  of  the  Budget. 
The  Indian  Statute  Book  contains  several  enact- 
ments enabling  the  executive,  in  times  of  trouble,  to 
suspend  the  regular  law  and  supersede  the  ordinary 
course  of  justice.  By  the  Act  of  1892,  to  which 
reference  is  made  above,  the  Governor-General  must 
summon  additional  members  for  the  purpose  of 
legislation,  not  less  than  ten  and  not  more  than  six- 
teen in  number,  one-half  of  whom  must  be,  and  more 
than  one-half  of  whom  usually  are,  non-officials. 
The  nominations  to  five  seats  are  made  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  members  of  the  legislative  councils  at 
Madras,  Bombay,  Calcutta,  and  Allahabad,  and  of 
the  Calcutta  Chamber  of  Commerce.  At  present  it 
generally  happens  that,  of  twenty-four  members  of 
the  Council  sitting  to  make  laws  and  regulations, 
one-third  are  natives  of  India,  but  by  reason  of 
the  permanent  official  element  provided  by  the 
ordinary  members,  the  Government  majority  is 
assured.  Ample  opportunity  is  given  for  the  expres- 
sion of  the  views  of  the  public,  and  opinions  are 
invited  broadcast  before  any  legislation  is  effected. 
Members  have  the  privilege  of  asking  questions 
and  discussing  the  Budget,  but  cannot  propose 
resolutions,  or  on  the  latter  occasion  divide  the 
Council.  Every  measure  passed  requires  the  Gov- 

115 


INDIA 

ernor-General's  consent  and  may  be  disallowed  by 
the  Sovereign.  Nor  has  the  Council  authority  to 
repeal  or  alter  the  Army  Act  or  any  enactment 
enabling  the  Secretary  of  State  to  raise  money  in 
the  United  Kingdom.  It  possesses,  however,  power 
to  make  laws  binding  native  Indian  subjects  any- 
where, for  European  British  subjects,  and  for  serv- 
ants of  the  Government  in  India  in  the  native  states, 
and  for  native  officers  and  soldiers,  wherever  they 
are  serving.  In  like  manner  the  Legislative  Council 
of  local  governments  consists,  besides  the  members 
of  the  Executive  Council,  of  not  less  than  eight, 
and  not  more  than  twenty,  other  members,  of  whom 
at  least  half  are  non-official.  In  the  four  great  prov- 
inces of  Madras,  Bombay,  Bengal,  and  the  United 
Provinces  some  of  these  members  are  appointed  on 
the  recommendations  of  groups  of  district  boards, 
universities,  chambers  of  commerce,  and  the  like 
bodies.  Codification  of  law  in  India  has  been  car- 
ried a  long  way  on  the  road  to  perfection,  since 
Lord  Macaulay,  the  first  law  member  of  the  Gov- 
ernor-General's Council  and  the  moving  spirit  on 
the  Indian  Law  Commission,  drafted  the  Penal  Code. 
Other  commissions  followed,  but  the  work  is  now 
done  by  Government,  under  the  guidance  of  the  law 
members,  and  codification,  always  useful,  is  particu- 
larly valuable  hi  a  country  in  which  the  judges 
and  magistrates  are  not  generally  professional  law- 
yers. European  officers  and  soldiers  remain  subject 
to  military  law,  but  native  troops  are  governed 
by  the  Indian  enactments  in  that  behalf.  In  native 

116 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF   INDIA 

states,  as  a  rule,  laws  are  passed  by  the  ruling  chief, 
with  the  advice  and  approval  of  the  political  offi- 
cers representing  the  British  Government,  to  which, 
however,  various  rights  are  reserved  arising  out  of 
the  fact  that,  for  international  purposes,  native 
states  are  regarded  as  part  of  the  British  Empire. 
Under  the  Indian  High  Courts  Act  of  1861  the 
Crown  was  empowered  to  establish  High  Courts 
for  Bengal,  Madras,  Bombay,  and  (later)  the  United 
Provinces;  the  judges  were  to  be  appointed  by  the 
Crown,  and  at  least  a  third  of  their  number  were 
to  be  barristers.  Every  province  is  divided  into 
Sessions  divisions,  presided  over  by  the  Sessions 
judge,  for  whose  sentence  of  death  confirmation  is 
required  from  the  highest  Court  of  Criminal  Appeal. 
After  the  Sessions  Courts  come  those  of  the  magis- 
trates of  different  classes,  and  elaborate  arrangements 
are  made  for  the  right  of  appeal  and  for  revision. 
Civil  suits  are  never  tried  by  jury  in  India,  but  by 
the  District  Judge,  Subordinate  Judge,  or  Munsifs 
and  Courts  of  Small  Causes.  The  civil  courts  of  the 
grades  below  that  of  district  judge  are  almost  entirely 
presided  over  by  natives  of  India,  while  eight  Indians 
occupy  seats  on  the  benches  of  the  High  Court  and 
two  are  judges  of  the  Chief  Court  of  the  Punjaub. 
An  appeal  from  the  High  Court  in  civil  and  certain 
criminal  cases  lies  to  the  Judicial  Committee  of  the 
Privy  Council.  Civil  courts  are  generally  excluded 
from  adjudication  of  matters  relating  to  the  assess- 
ment and  collection  of  the  land  revenue,  which  are 
for  the  most  part  disposed  of  by  the  collectors,  sit- 

117 


INDIA 

ting  as  revenue  courts.  Considerable  criticism  is  at 
present  levelled  at  the  combination  in  the  person  of 
one  officer  of  the  functions  of  collector  and  magis- 
trate. It  may  be  safely  stated,  however,  that  this 
system,  which  was  inherited,  as  has  been  observed 
above,  from  our  predecessors  in  title,  is  by  no  means 
unpopular  with  the  masses,  and  that  they  do  not 
desire  that  separation  of  these  functions  which  is 
in  fact  the  rule  only  in  the  most  advanced  Western 
countries.  In  the  dearth  of  more  serious  causes  of 
complaint  this  separation  is  one  of  the  planks  of 
the  Congress  platform,  and  since  it  is  quite  evident 
that  in  the  hands  of  a  corrupt  or  tyrannical  officer 
such  powers  might  be  abused,  it  is  hardly  necessary 
here  to  repeat  the  arguments  which  are  annually 
brought  forward  in  favour  of  separation,  a  reform 
which  is  indeed  now  under  the  consideration  of  the 
Government  of  India.  It  may,  however,  be  remarked 
that  district  magistrates  try  very  few  cases;  that 
appeals  from  the  decisions  of  their  subordinate 
magistrates  do  not  lie  to  them;  that  the  creation  of 
stipendiary  magistrates  for  the  disposal  of  criminal 
cases  only  throughout  the  country  would  cost  a 
great  deal  of  money;  that  the  English  educated 
classes  who  expect  to  be,  and  would  be,  appointed 
to  these  offices  would  naturally  and  necessarily  be 
gainers  by  the  change,  and  that  there  is  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  the  masses  of  the  people  would 
prefer  that  the  present  system,  which  provides  for 
disposal  or  revision  by  European  magistrates,  should 
be  continued. 

118 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    INDIA 

It  is  notorious  that  the  people  cry  out  for  adjudi- 
cation by  British  magistrates  wherever  possible,  and 
consider  them  more  trustworthy  and  impartial  then 
their  own  fellow-countrymen.  The  exclusive  juris- 
diction over  Europeans  on  the  part  of  the  Crown 
Courts  and  the  independence  of  all  other  tribunals, 
formerly  claimed  for  them,  have  now  disappeared. 
European  British  subjects  may  only,  however,  be 
arraigned  before  a  judge  or  magistrate  who  is  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace,  and  when  tried  before  a  dis- 
trict magistrate,  sessional  court,  or  high  court,  can 
claim  a  jury  of  which  not  less  than  half  the  mem- 
bers must  be  Europeans  or  Americans.  Otherwise 
Europeans  and  Indians  are  subject  to  the  same 
criminal  and  civil  jurisdiction.  Among  the  punish- 
ments authorised  is  whipping,  in  the  case  of  males, 
for  theft  and  certain  other  offences,  and,  in  spite  of 
objections  raised  by  humanitarian  societies,  this 
short  and  sudden  remedy  is  by  no  means  unpopular 
amongst  a  people  whose  ancestors  before  the  advent 
of  British  rule  were  subject  to  mutilation  as  well  as 
to  death,  imprisonment,  and  fine.  In  describing  the 
general  features  of  the  administration  of  India,  noth- 
ing was  said  regarding  local  and  municipal  gov- 
ernment, a  subject  of  too  great  importance  to  be 
disregarded.  Villages  may  be  divided  into  the  joint 
or  landlord  village,  the  type  prevailing  in  the  United 
Provinces,  Frontier  Province,  and  the  Punjaub, 
and  the  individual  or  ryot  wari  village,  which  pre- 
vails outside  Northern  India,  where  the  revenue  is 
assessed  on  the  individual  cultivator,  and  wherein 

119 


INDIA 

there  is  no  joint  responsibility.  In  both  cases  the 
usual  staff  of  village  officers  exists,  and  the  artisans 
and  traders  necessary  for  a  self-sufficing  unit.  The 
Indian  village  is  still  an  important  factor  in  the 
administration,  and  the  headman,  accountant,  and 
watchman  have  special  functions  to  perform  in  con- 
nection with  the  collection  of  the  revenue  and  the 
maintenance  of  law  and  order.  But  under  Hindoo 
and  Mohammedan  government  no  system  grew 
up  in  the  villages,  corresponding  with  that  which 
is  usual  in  Europe.  Representation  has  always 
been  altogether  foreign  to  the  Hindoo  genius,  and 
the  management  of  villages  and  of  towns  resided 
not  in  representatives  of  the  people,  but  in  tax-col- 
lectors, police  officers,  and  other  officials.  In  the 
days  of  Akbar,  the  Kotwal,  who  was  the  chief  author- 
ity in  magisterial,  police,  and  fiscal  matters,  was 
directed  "not  to  suffer  women  to  be  burnt  against 
their  will,  nor  a  criminal  deserving  of  death  to  be 
impaled,  to  allot  separate  quarters  to  butchers, 
hunters  of  animals,  sweepers,  and  washers  of  the 
dead,  and  to  restrain  men  from  associating  with  such 
stony-hearted  and  gloomy  dispositioned  creatures. 
He  was  to  amputate  the  hand  of  any  man  who  was 
the  pot  companion  of  the  executioner,  and  the  finger 
of  such  as  held  communication  with  his  family." 
Such  directions  as  these,  however,  from  the  Ain-i- 
akbari  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  relating  to  muni- 
cipal administration,  and  that  system  is  in  fact  a 
British  exotic.  True  it  was  introduced  in  1687  into 
Madras  city  after  a  pattern  which  then  obtained, 

120 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF   INDIA 

and  still  obtains,  in  London,  but  the  people,  then  as 
now,  abhorred  the  taxes  levied  for  sanitary  services. 
Nevertheless,  the  municipalities  have  continued  to 
exist  in  the  Presidency  towns,  and  the  elective  sys- 
tem was  introduced  into  them  between  1872  and 
1878.  District  municipalities  were  first  attempted 
in  1842,  based  upon  the  voluntary  principle,  which 
naturally  failed  amongst  a  people  who  have  ever 
been,  and  are  now,  hostile  to  the  whole  principle 
of  local  self-government. 

The  law  in  this  behalf  was  from  time  to  time 
altered  and  strengthened,  and  the  election  of  munici- 
pal commissioners  was  made  permissive.  Lord  Mayo 
went  further,  but  it  was  reserved  to  Lord  Ripon  to 
make  a  great  and  general  advance.  He  regarded  the 
elective  system  as  a  means  of  political  and  popular 
education,  and  widely  extended  its  bounds,  and  he 
gave  towns  power  to  elect  non-official  chairmen  in 
place  of  the  executive  officers.  At  the  same  time, 
municipal  revenues  were  relieved  of  the  maintenance 
of  the  police,  on  condition  that  they  incurred  equiva- 
lent expenditure  on  education,  medical  relief,  and 
local  public  works.  Lord  Ripon's  system  practically 
remains  in  force,  and  in  1901  there  were  742  district 
municipalities  in  the  empire,  in  the  great  majority 
of  which  some  of  the  members  are  elected,  and  some 
nominated  by  the  local  government. 

The  elected  members  vary  in  number,  from  one 
half  in  Bombay  to  three-quarters  in  the  United 
Provinces  and  Madras,  and  not  more  than  a  quarter 
of  the  members  of  the  committee  may  be  salaried 

121 


INDIA 

officers  of  Government  in  Madras,  Bombay,  and 
Bengal,  while  considerable  powers  of  control  are  in 
all  cases  reserved  to  Government  and  its  officers. 
About  two-thirds  of  the  aggregate  municipal  income 
is  derived  from  taxation,  and  the  remainder  from 
other  sources,  including  Government  contributions. 
It  may  safely  be  stated  that  the  only  tax  levied  by 
municipalities  which  is  not  exceedingly  unpopular 
is  one  to  which,  in  the  eyes  of  European  economists, 
particular  objection  attaches  —  the  octroi,  to  which 
the  people  have  no  particular  objection,  because 
they  regard  it  as  identical  with  the  town  or  transit 
duties  which  were  levied  under  Indian  rule.  The 
administration  of  Calcutta,  by  its  municipality,  has 
been  a  constant  source  of  anxiety  to  the  Government, 
though  it  would  be  unjust  to  regard  it  as  a  failure 
in  view  of  the  great  difficulties  with  which  it  had 
to  contend.  In  1899  the  number  of  commissioners 
was  reduced  from  75  to  50,  of  whom  25  are  elected, 
15  are  appointed  by  the  local  government,  4 
by  the  Bengal  Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  other 
native  associations,  and  2  by  the  Commissioners 
of  the  Port,  and  the  action  of  Government,  though 
called  for  by  the  imminence  of  plague,  was  resented 
by  the  advanced  politicians  of  Bengal  as  interfer- 
ence with  popular  government.  The  development 
of  local  institutions  in  rural  areas  has  been  accom- 
plished through  the  agency  of  local  boards,  which  in 
the  beginning,  like  municipalities,  partook  of  a  vol- 
untary character. 

In  1871  acts  were  passed  in  every  province  divid- 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    INDIA 

ing  the  country  into  local  fund  circles,  and  creating 
consultation  boards  nominated  by  the  Government, 
with  the  Collector  as  president.  Local  taxation 
was  now  introduced,  and  in  1882  Lord  Ripon  replaced 
the  local  committee  by  a  network  of  boards,  on  which 
the  non-official  element  preponderated,  and  the 
elective  principle  was  recognised  in  the  same  way  as 
in  municipalities,  but  the  degree  to  which  this  sys- 
tem has  been  introduced  is  not  constant,  but  varies 
in  different  provinces.  Provincial  rates  yield  60 
per  cent,  of  the  income  of  local  boards,  and  of  these 
the  land-cess  is  the  most  important. 

Although  the  extension  of  local  self-government 
has  always  been  regarded  in  some  quarters  as  a 
stepping-stone  of  the  progress  towards  an  ill-defined 
and  indefinite  goal,  before  reaching  which  the  inhab- 
itants of  India  must  have  entirely  changed  their 
character  and  outlook,  yet  it  must  be  admitted  that 
it  is  almost  the  most  unpopular  of  all  branches  of 
our  administrative  activities. 

The  writer  would  confess  that,  for  his  part,  he 
found  on  all  sides  nothing  but  discontent  with  the 
taxation  imposed  for  this  purpose,  and  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  result.  These  feelings  do  not  extend 
by  any  means  to  the  lawyer  class,  who  almost  invari- 
ably acquire  power  and  influence  upon  such  boards, 
but  the  aristocracy,  and  the  masses  of  the  people, 
whose  feelings  such  aristocracy  pretty  faithfully 
represents,  have  no  hesitation  in  expressing  to  any 
European  with  whom  they  are  on  terms  of  friend- 
ship their  dislike  and  distrust  of  the  whole  business, 

123 


INDIA 

and  particularly  of  that  very  representative  prin- 
ciple which  is  regarded  as  its  glory  by  its  founders 
and  admirers.  Officers  of  the  Government  rarely 
place  themselves  in  communication  at  first  hand  with 
the  people,  other  than  with  those  who  have  been 
denationalised  by  Western  education,  and  who  take 
care  in  every  district  to  form  a  camarilla,  through 
which  alone  information  reaches  the  English  officer, 
who  cannot,  without  a  knowledge  of  the  native 
languages,  and  considerable  originality  and  deter- 
mination of  character,  break  loose  from  his  bonds. 
It  is  only  by  incurring  the  absolute  enmity  of  the 
class  which  is  known  in  Bengal  as  the  Babus,  and 
exists  to  some  extent  in  every  province,  that  the 
English  official  can  associate  at  all  with  those  who 
represent  ninety-nine  in  one  hundred  of  the  popula- 
tion of  his  charge.  So  difficult  is  it  to  perform  this 
feat,  so  absolutely  necessary  is  it  to  the  success  of 
the  intrigues  of  the  Babu  class  to  prevent  communi- 
cation between  the  people  and  their  rulers,  that 
slanders  are  widely  circulated  concerning  the  official 
who  would  seek  the  truth,  and  efforts,  by  no  means 
always  unsuccessful,  are  freely  made  to  damage  him 
with  his  superiors,  by  means  of  anonymous  charges, 
in  the  concoction  of  which  the  writers  and  agita- 
tors of  India  are  extremely  adept.  There  is  no 
feature  of  local  self-government  which  is  so  thor- 
oughly unpopular  as  the  representative  principle. 
No  man  of  any  position  amongst  his  countrymen 
will  submit  himself,  at  any  rate  in  rural  districts, 
to  the  ordeal  of  election,  or  the  chance  of  having  to 

124 


THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    INDIA 

accept  as  his  colleagues  persons  of  low  caste  and 
slight  consideration.  There  is,  too,  an  indisposition 
to  accept  the  vexatious  and  exacting  requirements 
of  public  life,  and  little  doubt  exists  that  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  districts,  if  they  could  be  polled,  would, 
by  enormous  majorities,  vote  for  leaving  all  admin- 
istrative business  in  the  hands  of  the  impartial  and 
professional  administrator  who  represents  the  British 
Government  and  is  their  local  providence.  Another 
branch  of  the  administration  which  is  subject  to 
perpetual  criticism  on  the  part  of  the  Babu  class 
is  the  police  —  not  the  village  police,  but  the  regular 
established  force,  working  under  Government.  In 
1902  Lord  Curzon's  Government  appointed  a  com- 
mission to  inquire  into  the  police  administration,  a 
measure  which  is  held  by  very  competent  authorities 
to  have  conduced  in  no  small  degree  to  that  want  of 
respect  for  authority,  that  disposition  to  disaffec- 
tion, and  that  spirit  of  unrest  which  has  of  late  been 
only  too  conspicuous  in  Eastern  Bengal,  and  which 
spread,  not  without  active  assistance  from  the  agi- 
tators of  Calcutta,  to  other  parts  of  India,  and 
particularly  to  certain  districts  in  the  Punjaub. 


125 


CHAPTER  V 
REVENUES  AND  TAXATION 

IT  is  doubtful  if  any  country  in  the  world  can 
show  such  an  advance  in  prosperity  as  can  Brit- 
ish India  during  the  sixty  years  ending  with 
the  year  1900,  in  which  the  total  value  of  imports 
and  exports  has  risen  from  28  to  246  crores1  of  rupees, 
and  the  gross  revenue  from  21  to  113  crores.  The 
expenditure  has  increased  pari  passu,  as  salaries  have 
been  raised  in  amount  and  increased  in  number, 
public  instruction  and  medical  relief  have  been  organ- 
ised, and  vast  sums  have  been  spent  in  irrigation, 
railways,  post  office,  telegraphs,  and  sanitation.  It 
is  claimed  in  behalf  of  the  Government  that  the 
growth  in  the  revenue  is  due  to  increasing  prosperity 
and  better  management,  and  not  to  increasing  bur- 
dens on  the  tax-payer,  and,  as  shown  in  the  chapter 
on  land  revenue,  this  contention  may  be  considered 
to  be  fairly  sustained.  In  regard,  however,  to  local 
cesses  and  rates,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  people  who  pay 
would  complacently  accept  the  position  taken  up  by 
their  rulers,  and  whether  they  would  not  prefer  to 
be  without  some  of  the  services  of  Western  civilisa- 
tion and  to  retain  some  of  the  money  collected  from 

1  A  crore  of  rupees  is  £666,666. 

126 


REVENUES    AND   TAXATION 

them  on  this  account,  either  to  keep  it  in  their  own 
pockets,  bury  it  underground,  or  to  spend  it  accord- 
ing to  their  own  inclinations  upon  festivals  and  cere- 
monies. The  comparison  made  with  the  year  1860 
in  the  latest  official  publication  on  this  subject  is 
not  altogether  conclusive,  because  sources  of  tax- 
ation had  been  tapped  before  that  date  which  were 
new  to  the  people  of  India.  Income-tax,  for  instance, 
is  at  a  lower  rate  than  that  imposed  in  1860,  but  there 
was  a  time  before  1860  when  there  was  no  income- 
tax  at  all,  and  it  was  subsequent  to  1860  that  the 
unpopular  municipal  and  rural  rates  came  into 
being.  Of  the  total  income  of  £85,000,000  sterling 
in  1904-1905,  more  than  £6,000,000  were  derived 
from  sources  other  than  taxation  and  land  revenue, 
and  the  latter  receipt,  the  largest  of  all  the  individ- 
ual items  in  Europe,  would  fall  to  the  private  land- 
lord. The  direct  taxation  of  the  Moguls,  raised 
from  a  much  smaller  population  and  cultivated  area, 
and  at  a  time  when  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
rupee  was  much  higher,  was  heavier  than  that  now 
levied  by  the  Indian  Government.  One  of  the 
most  important  reforms  introduced  into  the  exist- 
ing financial  system  was  Lord  Mayo's  innovation  of 
making  a  fixed  grant  to  each  local  Government  for 
provincial  services,  and  thus  giving  them  an  interest 
in  effecting  economies  which  had  previously  been 
wanting;  but  hardly  had  the  benefit  of  this  change 
made  itself  felt,  when  that  decline  commenced  in 
the  value  of  silver  which  so  severely  tried  the  stabil- 
ity of  Indian  revenues. 

127 


INDIA 

Next  Lord  Lytton  endeavoured  to  obtain  an 
annual  surplus  of  Ij  crores,  to  be  applied  to  the 
reduction  or  avoidance  of  debt,  and  thus  to  provide 
for  expenditure  on  famine,  and  in  1882  the  general 
import  duties  were  abolished,  though  they  subse- 
quently had  to  be  reimposed.  Meanwhile  exchange 
continued  to  fall,  and  a  drop  of  a  penny  meant  an 
addition  of  over  a  crore  to  the  expenditure.  The 
action  of  Russia  on  the  Russo-Afghan  frontier  in 
1885,  and  the  conquest  of  Upper  Burma,  led  to 
further  charges,  which  resulted  in  the  necessity  for 
a  general  tax  on  non-agricultural  incomes  hi  excess 
of  500  rupees  per  annum,  and  the  increase  of  the 
salt-duty  to  2  rupees  8  annas  per  maund  of  82  pounds. 
Between  1892  and  1895  exchange  fell  from  Is.  3d. 
to  Is.  Id.;  in  1893  the  mints  were  closed  to  the  free 
coinage  of  silver,  and  the  Government  definitely 
adopted  the  policy  which  has  led  to  the  stable  rate 
of  exchange  at  Is.  4<d.  and  to  the  practical  attainment 
of  a  gold  standard.  In  1894  the  general  import- 
duty  of  5  per  cent,  was  reimposed,  a  countervailing 
excise-duty  being  levied  on  cotton  goods  produced 
by  Indian  mills.  In  1900  the  value  of  the  rupee 
reached  the  Is.  4>d.  rate,  and  from  1895,  when  the 
effect  of  the  new  policy  began  to  be  fully  felt,  up  to 
the  present  day  financial  prosperity  has  increased, 
though  two  exceptionally  severe  crop  failures  have 
occurred,  and  plague  has  fastened  upon  the  country. 
These  two  famines  cost  sixteen  and  the  military 
operations  on  the  frontier  of  1897-1898  accounted 
for  five  crores.  During  this  period  the  duty  on 

128 


REVENUES    AND   TAXATION 

cotton  cloth  was  largely  reduced,  cotton  twist  and 
yarn  were  exempted,  and  a  countervailing  duty  was 
imposed  to  protect  Indian  sugar  against  the  com- 
petition of  bounty-fed  beet  sugar  from  Europe.  In 
1902-1903  the  Government  remitted  2  crores  of 
arrears  of  land  revenue  which  had  accrued  in  the 
famine,  and  in  1903-1904  the  salt-tax  was  reduced 
from  2J  to  2  rupees  per  maund,  and  all  incomes  of  less 
than  1000  rupees  per  annum  were  exempted  from 
income-tax.  In  1905-1906  the  salt-tax  was  further 
reduced  to  lj  rupees,  and  the  grants  to  local  govern- 
ments were  largely  increased.  The  Budget  for  the 
current  year  provided  for  increased  expenditure  on 
police  and  education,  and  the  local  cesses  levied  for 
the  payment  of  village  officials  were  abolished  —  a 
welcome  remission,  though  this  is  the  particular 
service  remunerated  by  local  cesses,  to  which  the 
payers  have  the  least  objection.  Of  the  gross  reve- 
nue of  British  India  about  26  per  cent,  is  raised  from 
taxes  proper,  as  against  about  83  per  cent,  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  the  land  revenue  forms  about 
39  per  cent,  of  the  total  net  receipts,  as  against  44 
per  cent,  thirty  years  ago. 

The  revenue  derived  from  opium  is  obtained 
chiefly  from  the  export  of  this  product  to  China, 
where  the  local  product  has  become  a  formidable 
competitor  in  spite  of  decrees  by  the  Emperor  for- 
bidding the  use  of  the  drug.  At  present,  however, 
the  Indian  Government  is  under  an  engagement  to 
gradually  reduce  the  export,  year  by  year,  till  it 
altogether  ceases,  provided  that  the  Chinese  Govern- 

129 


INDIA 

ment  furnishes  proof  that  the  production  of  native 
opium  has  been  correspondingly  diminished.  This 
engagement  as  a  firm  agreement  is  limited  to  three 
years,  at  the  expiry  of  which  the  British  Govern- 
ment will  be  free  to  reconsider  the  position  —  as 
free,  that  is,  as  that  Government  ever  can  be,  when 
pressed  by  bodies  possessing  considerable  interest 
with  the  electorate,  and  desiring  to  abolish  the 
opium  trade,  without  regard  to  the  results  to  the 
Indian  revenue,  and  whether  or  not  the  abolition 
results  in  any  diminution  of  the  consumption  in 
China.  The  latest  authority,  Major  Bruce,  thinks 
the  English  Government  could  as  easily  abolish  beer 
drinking  as  the  Chinese  Government,  even  if  in 
earnest,  could  appreciably  reduce  the  use  of  opium 
in  China. 

There  was  a  time  when  opium  yielded  16,  but  it 
now  furnishes  only  7  per  cent,  of  the  total  net  reve- 
nue. The  receipts  from  salt,  the  consumption  of 
which  has  largely  increased  in  recent  years,  amounted 
to  8  crores  in  the  last  year  of  the  2|  rupees  duty, 
when  the  average  incidence,  which  now  has  fallen 
to  about  3d.,  was  5d.  per  head  of  the  population. 
Under  the  term  excise  is  included  not  only  the  reve- 
nue from  intoxicating  liquors,  but  also  the  duty  on 
opium  consumed  in  the  country,  where  the  drug  is 
used  chiefly  as  a  medicine  and  preventive  of  fever. 
In  malarial  tracts  the  people  are  absolutely  depend- 
ent upon  it,  and  prisoners  in  jail  from  such  regions 
if  deprived  of  their  dose  run  the  risk  of  losing  their 
lives.  The  use  of  opium  has  also  proved  highly 

130 


REVENUES   AND    TAXATION 

beneficial  to  Indians  in  malarial  parts  of  Africa, 
as  appears  from  reports  submitted  to  the  Colonial 
Office.  The  wholesale  condemnation  of  the  use  of 
this  drug  because  of  its  misuse  in  China  and  else- 
where obscures  the  fact  that  it  plays  a  very  valuable 
part  in  the  pharmacopoeia,  and  is  a  specific  in  regard 
to  malarial  diseases,  from  which  19  per  mille  of  the 
people  of  India  die,  as  against  2  per  mille  per  annum 
victims  of  the  plague,  of  which  we  hear  so  much 
more,  because  even  the  ingenuity  of  the  virulent 
critics  of  British  rule  in  India  can  hardly  assert 
that  malarial  fevers,  which  have  been  the  scourge  of 
the  country  throughout  its  history,  were,  like  plague, 
invented  by  the  British  Government,  or  brought 
about  by  the  oppression  and  excessive  taxation  of 
its  unhappy  subjects.  But  post  hoc  propter  hoc  is 
good  enough  argument  where  the  English  in  India 
are  concerned. 

The  customs  duties  are  levied  for  revenue  pur- 
poses only.  They  have  no  protective  power,  and 
they  tend  to  decline  in  consequence  of  the  rapid 
growth  in  the  local  production  of  petroleum,  and  the 
development  of  the  Indian  cotton  trade.  Of  the 
stamp  revenue,  which  amounted  to  5  crores  in 
1902-1903,  more  than  one-third  is  collected  in  Bengal 
owing  to  the  exceptionally  litigious  character  of  the 
inhabitants  of  that  region.  Of  the  ordinary  heads 
of  expenditure,  the  charges  for  civil  administration 
naturally  show  a  disposition  to  increase,  one  reason 
for  which  has  been  the  grant  of  compensation  allow- 
ances to  officers  of  Government  for  the  loss  caused 

131 


INDIA 

to  them  by  the  fall  in  the  value  of  the  rupee  upon 
their  remittances  to  England.  Little  or  no  excep- 
tion could  have  been  taken  to  this  measure  provided 
its  operation  had  been  confined  to  Government 
servants  who  had  entered  the  service  under  an 
express  or  implied  understanding  that  they  would 
be  paid  in  rupees  at  the  rate  of  ten,  or  about  ten,  to 
the  pound.  But  there  is  much  reason  for  holding 
that  to  extend  the  concession  to  officers  who  joined 
the  service  when  exchange  had  fallen,  and  was 
falling  rapidly,  was  hardly  fair  to  the  tax-payer, 
who  was  in  no  way  responsible  for  such  fall.  The 
question  is  one  of  little  interest  now,  but  it  gave  rise 
at  the  time  to  some  acrimonious  criticism,  for  which 
there  was,  it  would  appear,  no  little  justification. 
The  expenditure  under  general  administration,  police, 
and  education  shows  a  progressive  increase,  that 
for  education  being  83  lakhs  more  than  in  1876- 
1877,  though  there  will  perhaps  in  the  future  be 
still  further  increases,  in  consequence  of  the  changes 
contemplated  by  Lord  Minto's  Government. 

Under  the  item,  political  pensions,  40  lakhs 
annually  are  spent,  and  when  the  administration 
is  accused,  as  it  frequently  is,  of  niggardly  dealings 
with  these  pensioners,  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  latter  have  been  confirmed  in  the  receipt  of 
handsome  stipends,  whereas  before,  they  were  as  a 
rule  merely  new  and  precarious  occupants  of  the 
thrones  and  more  or  less  royal  cushions  from  which 
they  or  their  ancestors  have  been  deposed.  Many 
of  the  families,  who  have  been  subjects  of  much 

132 


REVENUES   AND    TAXATION 

superfluous  sympathy,  were  of  mere  mushroom 
growth,  and  would  certainly  have  been  swept  away 
but  that  they  found  salvation  in  the  consolidation 
of  British  rule. 

No  outline  of  the  finances  of  India,  however  brief, 
would  be  in  any  sense  complete  without  a  reference 
to  the  railway  system,  which  is  destined  to  become 
a  very  large  contributor  towards  the  revenues  of 
the  country.  In  1850  and  succeeding  years  Eng- 
lish companies  constructed  eight  railways,  upon  a 
guarantee  of  5  per  cent,  on  their  total  outlay  with 
half  the  surplus  profits.  Without  such  a  guarantee 
British  capital  would  not  have  been  attracted  to 
India,  where  it  has  performed  such  valuable  work 
for  the  people  of  the  country,  and  where,  moreover, 
capital  from  no  other  quarter  was  at  all  likely  to 
have  been  attracted.  All  the  old  guaranteed  rail- 
ways have  now  been  purchased  by  the  Government 
under  a  provision  in  their  contracts  in  that  behalf. 
When  the  system  above  described  had  been  in  force 
for  twenty  years  the  Government  began  to  borrow 
money  for  construction.  With  these  funds,  only 
such  lines  were  constructed  as  were  expected  to  yield 
sufficient  to  cover  the  interest  on  the  capital  outlay 
within  a  reasonable  time,  and  other  railways  required 
for  protection  against  famine  were  built  out  of  reve- 
nue. In  order,  however,  to  expedite  the  completion 
of  the  necessary  programme,  the  aid  was  invoked 
of  private  companies,  whose  contracts  were  far 
more  favourable  to  the  State,  and  far  less  generous 
to  the  proprietors,  than  those  given  on  a  5  per 

133 


INDIA 

cent,  sterling  guarantee.  At  the  end  of  1904-1905 
India  was  provided  with  27,728  miles  of  railway,  of 
which  some  20,000  belonged  to  the  State,  and  the 
capital  outlay  was  202  crores,  of  which  59  crores 
were  spent  on  the  purchase  of  the  companies'  lines. 
The  result  the  railway  account  shows  is  that  between 
1876  and  1881  there  was  an  average  net  loss  of  120 
lakhs,  and  between  1899  and  1905  an  average  net 
gain  of  111  lakhs.  There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that 
in  the  future  railways  will  prove  a  valuable  source 
of  revenue  to  the  State,  and  they  have  already  saved 
the  lives  of  millions  during  seasons  of  widespread 
failure  of  crops. 

For  forty  years  past  officers,  designated  consult- 
ing engineers,  had  exercised  supervision  over  com- 
panies' lines,  and  they  were,  in  the  case  of  Madras, 
Bombay,  and  Burma,  attached  to  those  Govern- 
ments, and  in  other  cases  directly  under  the  Gov- 
ernment of  India,  which  of  course  directly  exercised 
control  over  guaranteed  lines.  After  various  modi- 
fications in  the  secretarial  arrangements  and  in  the 
agency  maintained  at  headquarters  for  the  conduct 
of  railway  business  a  Railway  Board  was  created. 
After  a  report  had  been  received  from  an  officer, 
Mr.  Robertson,  specially  deputed  to  examine  the 
problem,  it  was  considered  that  the  management 
of  the  railway  system  should  be  entrusted  to  practi- 
cal railway  men,  less  tied  up  in  red  tape  than  the 
Government  officials  previously  engaged  in  this 
responsible  duty.  Accordingly,  the  railway  branch 
of  the  Government  of  India  Secretariat  was  abolished 

134 


REVENUES   AND    TAXATION 

in  1905,  and  a  Railway  Board,  consisting  of  a  chair- 
man, Sir  F.  Upcott,  and  two  members,  one  with 
English  and  one  with  Indian  railway  experience, 
was  created  to  take  its  place.  This  board  works 
under  the  department  of  Commerce  and  Industry 
created  by  Lord  Curzon's  Government,  and  the  care 
of  irrigation  and  civil  works,  which  alone  now  fell 
to  the  Public  Works  Department,  was  transferred 
with  that  department  to  the  charge  of  the  depart- 
ment of  Revenue  and  Agriculture.  Certain  defects 
in  this  arrangement  have,  however,  already  become 
apparent,  and  Mr.  Morley  has  appointed  a  commis- 
sion, with  Sir  James  Mackay,  the  negotiator  of  the 
last  trade  treaty  with  China,  at  its  head,  to  inquire 
into  the  whole  subject.  This  commission  has  not 
yet  reported  and  meanwhile  important  changes  are 
taking  place  in  Southern  India  owing  to  the  pur- 
chase by  Government  of  the  Madras  railway,  an 
old  5  per  cent,  guaranteed  line,  the  mileage  of  which 
is  being  distributed  between  the  South  Indian  and 
Southern  Mahratta  narrow-gauge  systems. 

The  national  debt  of  India  in  1904-1905  was 
£133,000,000  sterling  and  122  crores  of  rupees,  and 
the  total  debt,  taking  both  classes  together,  rose 
from  £103,000,000  sterling  in  1876  to  £214,000,000 
sterling  in  1905,  but  whereas  in  1876  there  was  a 
charge  against  revenue  for  railways  and  irrigation 
works  of  over  a  crore  of  rupees,  in  1905  these  works, 
after  paying  all  interest  charges,  yielded  a  profit  of 
nearly  5  crores.  In  1903-1904  Sir  Edward  Law, 
then  Finance  Minister,  showed  that  the  excess  of 

135 


INDIA 

debt  of  assets  in  1902  was  only  33  crores,  the  whole 
Government  debt  being  shown  on  one,  and  the  cap- 
italised value  of  railways,  canals,  and  other  com- 
mercial assets  on  the  other  side.  The  subject  of 
military  expenditure  looms  largely  in  considering 
the  financial  system  of  the  British  Indian  Empire, 
upon  which  it  has  produced,  and  continues  to  pro- 
duce, so  great  an  effect.  The  advance  of  Russia 
and  the  conquest  of  Upper  Burma  in  1885,  the  intro- 
duction of  improvements  in  armament,  equipment, 
land  organisation  in  1890,  1891,  and  similar  improve- 
ments which  have  been  continually  effected  subse- 
quent to  that  date;  the  raising  of  the  pay  of  the 
native  soldiers  in  1895,  and  of  the  British  soldiers  in 
1898  and  1902;  the  establishment  of  cordite,  gun 
casting,  and  small  arms  factories,  redistribution  and 
reorganisation;  the  supply  of  new  guns  and  rifles, 
and  the  expenditure  on  military  works,  have  brought 
the  average  figures  for  the  quinquennial  period 
1896-1897  to  1900-1901  to  23  crores,  against  the 
quinquennial  average  of  17  crores  in  the  period 
1876-1877  to  1880-1881,  and  the  figure  for  1904- 
1905  rose  to  27  crores.  In  spite  of  criticisms  lev- 
elled against  the  military  administration,  which  is 
further  noticed  elsewhere,  it  can  hardly  be  seri- 
ously contended  that  an  army  of  230,000  is  exces- 
sive for  a  vast  empire,  with  many  thousands  of 
miles  of  land  frontier,  and  a  population  approach- 
ing 300,000,000. 

Of  the  extraordinary  expenditure  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  India,  the  largest  item  has  been  famine 

136 


REVENUES   AND    TAXATION 

relief,  or,  as  it  should  be  called,  prevention  of  famine, 
upon  which,  between  1876  and  1903,  26  crores  were 
spent,  while  the  cost  of  military  operations  during 
the  same  period  was  22  crores.  Within  this  time 
occurred  the  Afghan  War  of  1878,  the  Upper  Burma 
expedition  of  1885-1886,  the  Chitral  campaign  of 
1895-1896,  and  the  Tirah  and  other  frontier  cam- 
paigns of  1897-1899,  and  also  three  great  crop  fail- 
ures, that  of  1876-1878,  in  South  India,  and  of 
1896-1897  and  1899-1900  in  Upper  India,  the  Cen- 
tral Provinces,  Bombay,  and  other  regions. 

Indian  accounts  are  kept  in  three  sets  —  those  of 
the  Home  Government,  of  the  Government  of  India, 
and  of  the  local  governments.  The  decentralisa- 
tion policy  was  initiated  by  Lord  Mayo  in  1870,  and 
subsequently  further  developed  with  the  intention  of 
giving  local  governments  an  inducement  to  develop 
their  resources  and  economise  in  their  expenditures, 
to  obviate  the  need  for  interference  in  the  details 
of  provincial  administration  on  the  part  of  the 
Central  Government,  and  at  the  same  |time  to 
maintain  the  unity  of  the  finances,  so  that  all  parts 
of  the  administration  should  receive  a  proper  share 
of  the  increase  of  revenue. 

Under  the  existing  arrangement,  the  Government 
of  India  delegates  to  local  governments  the  control 
of  the  expenditure  on  the  ordinary  provincial  ser- 
vices, together  with  certain  heads  of  revenue,  or  a 
proportion  of  certain  heads  of  revenue,  sufficient  to 
meet  these  charges.  Thus  salt,  customs,  opium,  and 
tribute  are  wholly  Imperial  heads;  stamps,  excise, 

137 


INDIA 

land  revenue,  assessed  taxes,  forests,  and  registration 
are  divided  between  the  Imperial  and  provincial 
governments,  and  local  taxes  are  wholly  provincial. 
The  Government  of  India  entirely  controls  charges 
connected  with  foreign  affairs,  with  the  public  debt, 
the  army,  Indian  marine,  and  the  home  charges  of 
the  central  administration.  It  also  keeps  in  its  own 
hands  post  and  telegraphs,  mint  and  railways,  and 
its  expenditure  amounts  to  three  times  as  much  as 
that  of  all  the  provincial  governments  put  together. 
The  local  governments  have  no  borrowing  powers, 
but  fall  back  on  the  Government  of  India  when 
their  own  resources  are  exhausted  —  as  was  the  case 
in  Bombay,  for  instance,  during  the  last  famine.  It 
was  very  clearly  laid  down  by  Sir  James  Westland, 
with  the  approval  of  Lord  Elgin  and  his  colleagues, 
that  the  whole  resources  of  India  were  at  the  disposal 
of  the  Government  of  India,  and  that  local  govern- 
ments were  merely  delegates,  and  exercised  such 
functions  as  they  were  permitted  to  perform  under 
the  control  of  the  central  administration.  Arrange- 
ments with  the  local  governments,  which  formerly 
lasted  five  years  only,  have  now  been  made  of  a 
more  permanent  character.  Permanent  they  can 
never  be  made,  for  the  financial  fortunes  of  the 
provinces  must  always  stand  or  fall  with  those  of 
the  Central  Government.  The  changes  made,  how- 
ever, are  in  the  right  direction,  and  in  future  Budget 
day  at  Calcutta  will  cease  to  resolve  itself  into  a 
wrangle  as  to  which  of  the  provincial  governments 
is  the  milch  cow  of  the  Government  of  India.  The 

138 


REVENUES   AND    TAXATION 

net  expenditure  in  England  chargeable  to  Indian 
revenue  is  about  £17,700,000  sterling,  of  which 
£6,500,000  are  railway  revenue  account;  £2,800,000, 
interest  and  management  of  debt;  £1,800,000,  stores; 
£1,300,000,  army  effective  charges;  £400,000,  civil 
administration;  £200,000,  marine;  £4,700,000,  fur- 
lough and  pension  allowances  of  civil  and  military 
officers.  These  are  the  payments  which  are  com- 
monly described  by  hostile  critics  of  British  admin- 
istration as  the  drain,  or  as  the  tribute  paid  to 
England.  But  of  the  £17,000,000,  upwards  of  £11,- 
000,000  are  payment  on  account  of  capital  and 
materials  supplied  by  England,  and  cannot  properly 
be  regarded  as  an  administrative  transaction.  The 
charge  of  £4,700,000  for  furlough  and  pension  allow- 
ances stands,  it  must  be  confessed,  on  a  different 
footing.  It  is  of  no  avail  to  say  that  such  a  pay- 
ment is  unprecedented,  because  the  Indian  Empire  is 
unprecedented  and  no  precedents  can  be  expected, 
but,  inasmuch  as  the  salaries  paid  by  the  Indian 
Government  to  its  servants  are  by  no  means  ungen- 
erous, it  may  very  fairly  be  argued  that  this  is  an 
exceptionally  large  amount  for  the  Indian  tax-payer 
to  find  for  the  benefit  of  officers  who  have  left  the 
country.  To  the  furlough  allowances  no  reason- 
able exception  can  be  taken.  They  must  necessarily 
be  pitched  upon  a  scale  analogous  to  that  of  the 
salary  in  each  individual  case.  But  when  a  public 
servant  enjoys  good  pay  during  the  whole  of  his 
service,  retires,  and  returns  to  his  own  country, 
perhaps  in  the  prime  of  life,  to  live  for  many  years 

139 


INDIA 

as  a  pensioner,  it  is  hardly  reasonable  that  he 
should  claim  to  be  altogether  relieved  of  the  neces- 
sity for  making  provision  for  himself  after  his  retire- 
ment, and  that  a  generous  scale  of  pensions  operates 
in  encouragement  of  extravagance  can  hardly  be 
denied. 

The  class  of  pension  often  selected  for  adverse 
criticism  is  that  of  the  Indian  civil  servant  who 
receives  £1000  a  year,  but  it  should  be  understood 
that,  of  this  sum,  he  has  subscribed  an  amount  equal, 
as  a  minimum,  to  one-half  of  the  whole,  by  compul- 
sory payments  to  the  pension  fund,  and,  in  the  case 
of  an  officer  of  long  service  it  frequently  happens 
that   his   payments   to   the  provident  fund   would 
entitle  him  to  a  pension  of  this  amount.     There  are 
indeed  many  public  servants  who  draw  higher  pen- 
sions  than   £500  a  year,   which  is   the  maximum 
received  by  the  Indian  civil  servant  from  the  Indian 
tax-payer.     It  would  probably  be  generally  admitted 
that  British  officers  serving  in  India  are  able  to 
make  some  provision  for  their  old  age,  though  the 
cost  of  living  has  largely  increased,  family  expenses 
are  exceedingly  heavy,  and  no  Indian  civil  servant 
who  has  not  considerable  private  resources  can  pos- 
sibly hope,  on  his  return  to  England,  to  take  any 
part  in  public   life,   or  to  end  his  days  in  other 
than  modest  obscurity.     This  is  a  regrettable  fact, 
because  the  sound  common-sense  views  and  experi- 
ences of  this  class  of  the  unemployed  are  not  by  any 
means  represented  by  those  of  their  cloth,  whom 
want  of  success  and  disappointment,  or  a  naturally 

140 


REVENUES   AND   TAXATION 

anti-English  turn  of  mind,  inspires  with  sufficient 
energy  to  push  their  way  through  to  platforms 
from  which  to  criticise  their  own  kith  and  kin  and 
the  administration,  willing  and  concurring  agents  of 
which  they  have  apparently  been  for  the  greater 
part  of  their  lives.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  emi- 
nently desirable  that  home  charges,  other  than  those 
represented  by  interest  upon  capital  and  materials, 
should  be  kept  within  the  lowest  possible  limits. 
Mr.  Morley  has  given  practical  proof  that  he  enter- 
tains this  view  by  effecting  a  reduction  in  the  salaries 
of  the  members  of  his  own  Council,  a  measure  which 
has  met  with  some  adverse  criticism  in  India.  It  is 
true  that  retired  officers  of  the  Indian  Government 
who  have  secured  employment  in  the  city,  or  else- 
where, might  find  it  difficult  to  accept  a  seat  on  the 
Indian  Council,  with  the  consequent  loss  of  emol- 
ument. But  on  the  other  hand  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  a  very  small  proportion  of  retired  civil 
servants,  of  the  class  and  age  from  which  members 
of  Council  are  recruited,  can,  or  at  any  rate  do, 
obtain,  after  their  retirement,  employment  so  re- 
munerated that  they  would  incur  loss  of  income 
by  accepting  a  membership  of  Council.  In  the  vast 
majority  of  cases  the  officers  the  Secretary  of  State 
would  desire  to  appoint  would  be  as  ready  to  take 
the  appointment  at  £1000  as  at  £1200  a  year.  Offi- 
cers who  serve  in  administrative  appointments  in 
India  occupy  a  position  of  power  and  importance 
which  can  hardly  be  realised  by  those  who  spend 
their  lives  in  England,  and  it  is  only  fair  that  proper 

141 


INDIA 

provision  should  be  made  for  the  evening  of  their 
days.  It  is,  however,  out  of  the  question  to  attempt 
to  provide  them  from  public  funds  with  pensions  at 
all  proportionate  to  the  dignity  of  the  appointments 
they  held  in  India,  and  it  is  probable  that,  in  regard 
to  officers  appointed  in  the  future,  terms  might  be 
imposed  providing  that  in  no  case  should  any  pension 
from  Indian  revenues  exceed  £500  a  year,  exclusive 
of  such  amounts  as  any  officer  may  subscribe  towards 
the  cost  of  his  own  pension.  Judges  of  the  High 
Court  appointed  from  England  receive  a  pension  of 
£1200  a  year  for  less  than  twelve  years'  service  in 
India  —  that  is,  £100  a  year  for  life  for  every  year 
spent  in  the  country,  an  amount  only  exceeded,  it  is 
believed,  by  that  paid  to  an  ambassador  who  passes 
twelve  years  in  that  grade  after  a  long  life  spent  in 
the  public  service.  This  exceptionally  large  pension 
was  attached  to  the  office  of  High  Court  judge  to 
induce  barristers  of  eminence,  in  large  practice,  to 
leave  this  country  and  take  up  judgeships  in  India. 
It  would  be  idle  to  ignore  the  fact  that  men  of  the 
class  these  terms  were  intended  to  attract  do  not 
avail  themselves  of  the  offer,  and  that  judges  of 
equal  capacity,  to  a  great  extent,  perhaps  for  the 
most  part,  natives  of  India,  could  be  obtained  on 
more  favourable  terms.  Here,  perhaps,  is  an  oppor- 
tunity of  effecting  a  reduction  in  the  home  charges, 
and  there  may  be  other  concrete  cases.  Every  such 
reduction  will  be  unpopular,  and  will  be  resisted  by 
the  officers  affected,  but  the  critics  of  the  home 
charges  have  their  eyes  fixed  upon  cases  like  these, 

142 


REVENUES    AND    TAXATION 

and  being,  as  they  are  for  the  most  part,  lawyers 
they  fasten  upon  every  appointment  made  to  the 
High  Court  benches  in  India  which  affords  any 
justification  for  the  views  they  entertain.  These 
appointments  are  not  in  some  cases  such  as  an 
impartial  judge  can  consider  altogether  satisfactory, 
but  that  is  only  an  additional  reason  for  giving  the 
fullest  consideration  to  every  complaint  for  which 
there  appears  to  be  any  justification.  The  dispenser 
of  patronage  can  only  appoint  men  who  are  willing 
to  go.  The  men  the  terms  were  intended  to  secure 
will  not  go.  But  that  would  be  a  good  reason  for 
reducing  the  pay,  not  for  overpaying  the  men  who 
will  accept. 

For  the  rest,  the  great  advance  in  revenue  and 
prosperity  is  so  obviously  due  to  the  use  in  the  coun- 
try of  British  capital  that  it  is  idle  to  entertain  the 
theory  that  the  Empire  is  exploited  for  the  benefit 
of  the  British  capitalists,  who  indeed  manifest  a 
preference  for  almost  any  other  field  of  investment. 
Without  a  Government  guarantee  it  is  at  present  dif- 
ficult to  attract  capital  at  all,  and  the  action  of  the 
Bengali  agitators,  who  have  succeeded  by  intrigue 
in  awakening  a  slight  echo  in  the  Punjaub,  will  not 
tend  to  diminish  the  previously  existing  shyness  of 
the  investor. 

The  expenditure  in  England  is  defrayed  by  the 
sale  of  telegraphic  transfers  and  from  the  sale  of 
Council  bills,  and,  as  the  imports  of  India  are 
exceeded  by  her  exports,  purchasers  in  Europe  have 
to  remit  the  difference.  With  this  end  in  view,  they 

143 


INDIA 

buy  bills  on  India  from  the  Secretary  of  State,  who 
pays  the  home  charges  with  the  proceeds,  and  the 
buyers  send  the  bills  to  India  to  be  cashed  by 
the  Government.  This  simple  and  effective  system 
was  subject  to  considerable  disturbance  when  the 
exchange  value  of  the  rupee  fell  to  Is.  Id.  in  1894- 
1895.  In  that  year  the  sterling  value  of  the  bills 
paid  was  £15,770,000,  to  discharge  which  the  Gov- 
ernment of  India  had  to  pay  28  crores  of  rupees, 
while  at  the  rate  prevailing  in  1872  it  would  have 
had  to  pay  only  16  crores,  the  difference  of  12  crores 
being  more  than  hah*  the  amount  of  the  net  land 
revenue,  the  greatest  asset  of  the  Indian  Gov- 
ernment. The  satisfactory  condition  of  Indian 
finances,  and  the  progressive  improvement  which  has 
marked  the  last  thirty  years,  are  obscured  by  the 
use  of  the  word  famine  for  those  periodical  crop 
failures  which  must,  and  do  at  longer  or  shorter 
intervals,  affect  some  part  or  another  of  the  vast 
subcontinent  of  Asia  dependent  upon  a  precarious 
monsoon.  If  the  use  of  this  word  were  abandoned, 
and  famine  relief  were  called  by  its  proper  and  now 
thoroughly  justified  name  of  prevention  of  famine, 
less  heed  would  be  paid  to  the  foolish  charges  brought 
against  the  Government  of  oppression  and  starva- 
tion of  their  subjects.  In  fact,  there  is  an  increasing 
land  revenue  accompanied  by  a  diminishing  inci- 
dence on  the  cultivated  area,  and  a  steady  rise  in 
the  receipts  from  salt,  excise,  customs,  and  income 
tax,  all  satisfactory  proofs  of  developing  resources. 
The  latest  published  figures  show  that  the  value  of 

144 


REVENUES    AND    TAXATION 

exports  and  imports,  including  bullion,  have  risen 
from  61  and  37  crores  respectively,  in  1876-1877, 
to  129  and  86  crores.  The  number  of  cotton  and 
jute  mills  has  increased  since  1878  from  78  to  237. 
In  the  same  period  the  coal  produced  has  been 
multiplied  sevenfold,  and  the  supply  of  petroleum 
has  leapt  in  a  year  or  two  from  6,000,000  to  56,000,- 
000  of  gallons.  The  number  of  joint-stock  com- 
panies has  more  than,  and  their  capital  has  nearly, 
doubled.  The  black  cloud  of  falling  exchange  has 
disappeared,  but  a  little  cloud  has  appeared  in  the 
possible  extinction  of  the  opium  revenue.  It  can 
only  be  hoped  that  the  opinion  of  those  who  believe 
that  when  India  ceases  to  supply  China  with  opium, 
the  supply  in  China  will  cease,  will  be  justified,  but 
the  loss  of  revenue  will  in  any  case  be  a  serious 
matter,  though  not  such  as  the  Government  cannot 
surmount  without  the  help  of  the  mother  country, 
to  the  receipt  of  aid  from,  which  would  attach, 
whether  expressed  or  implied,  conditions  which  must 
impair  the  financial  independence  of  India.  The 
great  expansion  hitherto  experienced  in  the  land 
revenue  cannot  be  maintained;  indeed,  if  the  view 
expressed  in  Chapter  III  of  this  volume  be  adopted, 
no  further  development  can  be  expected.  The  Gov- 
ernment always  welcomes  any  increase  in  the  pro- 
duction in  India  of  articles  at  present  imported  from 
Europe,  albeit  such  increase  must  necessarily  be 
attended  with  a  decline  in  the  customs  revenues. 
Indeed,  it  has  itself  worked  two  collieries  through 
the  agency  of  the  North-Western  Railway,  and 

145 


INDIA 

either  directly  or  through  the  agency  of  a  subsidised 
company  has  produced  iron  and  steel  in  Bengal. 
Svadeshi  was  really  invented  by  the  Government, 
which,  as  Lord  Minto  has  said,  welcomes  its  devel- 
opment, provided  it  be  of  an  economic  and  not  of  a 
spurious  political  character. 

In  connection  with  the  finances  of  India  it  is 
necessary  to  refer  briefly  to  the  introduction  of  the 
gold  standard.  Under  the  Currency  Acts  of  1835 
and  1870,  silver  was  received  without  limit  for  coin- 
age at  the  mints  of  Calcutta  and  Bombay,  and  the 
gold  value  of  the  rupee  of  180  grains  weight,  and  of 
165  grains  of  pure  silver,  depended  upon  the  gold 
price  of  silver  bullion.  The  fall  in  the  value  of 
silver,  which  began  in  1873,  not  only  caused  great 
loss  to  the  Government  of  India,  in  discharging  its 
sterling  obligations  in  England,  but  also,  owing  to 
frequent  and  violent  oscillations  in  the  rate  of 
exchange,  checked  the  flow  of  British  capital  into 
India,  and  disturbed  the  commercial  and  economic 
relations  between  the  two  countries  It  was  decided, 
therefore,  to  introduce  a  gold  standard,  and  in  1893 
the  mints  were  closed  to  unrestricted  coinage,  and 
bullion  and  gold  coin  were  received  in  exchange  for 
rupees  at  the  rate  of  Is.  4d.  to  the  rupee.  In  conse- 
quence of  these  measures  the  average  rate  of  exchange 
for  1898-1899  had  been  pretty  well  established  at 
a  figure  very  closely  approximating  to  Is.  4d.  In 
1899,  therefore,  sovereigns  and  half-sovereigns  were 
made  legal  tender  at  Is.  4sd.  to  the  rupee,  which,  while 
remaining  legal  tender  up  to  any  amount,  yet  became 

146 


REVENUES    AND    TAXATION 

a  token  coin  representing  ^  of  a  sovereign,  though 
no  sovereigns  have  actually  been  coined  in  India. 
Gold  does  not  circulate  freely,  except  in  large  cen- 
tres, but  between  1900  and  1904  about  £17,000,000 
sterling  were  issued  in  this  form,  most  of  which 
has  probably  been  withdrawn  from  circulation,  and 
more  Indico  hoarded  by  the  possessors.  Lest  the 
Indian  Government  should  at  any  time  be  unable 
to  satisfy  a  demand  for  gold,  by  which  failure 
the  rate  of  exchange  would  probably  be  adversely 
affected,  a  special  Gold  Reserve  Fund  has  been 
formed  on  which  Government  could  draw  if  the 
stock  in  the  paper  currency  reserves  were  exhausted. 
The  present  circulation  of  rupees  is  estimated  at 
between  155  and  160  crores,  or  about  £100,000,000. 
The  banking  of  the  country  is  carried  on  by 
institutions  of  the  same  character  as  those  with 
which  we  are  familiar  in  England,  and  also  by 
native  money-lenders  who  charge  high,  often  exorbi- 
tant, rates  of  interest,  but  run  risks  and  lend  money 
where  no  others  would,  and  supply  capital  in  small 
doles  for  agricultural  operations.  They  are  the 
bankers  of  the  small  farmers  of  India,  though  the 
Government  grants  loans  for  improvements  and  for 
the  purchase  of  seed  and  cattle,  and  makes  advances 
in  years  of  scarcity.  Co-operative  credit  societies 
are  also  being  introduced  and  encouraged  by  legis- 
lation, institutions  of  the  same  character  as  the 
agricultural  banks  of  the  continent  of  Europe,  de- 
signed to  encourage  thrift,  promote  the  accumula- 
tion of  loanable  capital,  and  reduce  the  interest  on 

147 


INDIA 

borrowed  money  by  a  system  of  mutual  credit. 
Post  office  savings  banks  are  also  encouraged,  the 
amount  to  credit  of  depositors  being  not  far  short 
of  £9,000,000  sterling.  The  Presidency  banks  at 
Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay  are  joint-stock  com- 
panies regulated  by  an  Indian  Act  of  1876,  at  which 
Government  keeps  a  portion  only  of  its  headquarter 
balances.  There  are  also  eight  exchange  and  eight 
local  European  banks,  and  the  total  capital  avail- 
able for  financing  the  larger  operations  of  commerce 
is  about  £10,000,000  sterling.  The  Government, 
however,  is  the  great  Indian  banker,  which  holds 
most  of  its  own  cash  balances,  has  sole  control  of 
the  paper  currency,  and  through  its  transactions 
with  the  India  Office  controls  the  rate  of  exchange. 
The  Presidency  banks  are,  however,  debarred  from 
raising  money  in  the  English  market,  a  restriction 
the  removal  of  which  has  been,  and  even  now  is, 
under  consideration.  Mercantile  opinion  favours  the 
view  that  existing  banking  facilities  are  not  suf- 
ficient to  deal  adequately  with  the  requirements  of 
commerce,  and  the  official  opinion  is  that  existing 
banks  would  suffice,  if  they  were  so  managed  that 
their  resources  would  be  free  for  the  convenience 
of  merchants  in  seasons  of  commercial  activity. 
Whichever  view  may  be  correct  it  appears  desirable 
that  such  further  facilities  as  may  be  practicable 
should  be  afforded,  and  access  to  the  London  market 
might  fairly  be  allowed  to  the  Presidency  banks. 


148 


CHAPTER  VI 

NATIVE  STATES 

THE  census  report  of  1901  estimates  the  aggre- 
gate area  of  the  native  states  at  679,392 
square  miles,  or  38  per  cent,  of  the  1,776,597 
square  miles  which  make  up  the  Indian  Empire,  the 
population  of  which  is  62,461,549,  out  of  294,361,056 
inhabitants  of  India,  in  which  are  not  included  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Shan  States  of  Burma,  the  Khasia 
and  Jaintia  Hills,  Manipur  and  Bhutan,  while  the 
area  and  population  of  Nepaul  have  not  been  prop- 
erly ascertained.  The  native  states  thus  comprise 
more  than  a  third  of  the  area  and  support  consid- 
erably less  than  a  quarter  of  the  population.  In 
52,  53,  Victoria,  cap.  63,  it  is  provided  that  the 
expression  India  shall  mean  British  India,  together 
with  any  territories  of  any  native  chief  under  the 
suzerainty  of  her  Majesty,  exercised  through  the 
Governor-General,  or  through  any  officer  subordi- 
nate to  him.  This  suzerainty,  in  the  case  of  175 
states,  is  exercised  directly  by  the  Government  of 
India,  and  in  the  case  of  500  through  provincial 
governments.  Sir  William  Lee  Warner  explains  that 
the  generally  accepted  view  is  that  suzerainty  is 
divisible  between  the  British  Government  and  the 

149 


INDIA 

ruling  chief,  and  that,  of  its  attributes,  the  right  to 
make  war  or  peace  and  the  right  of  foreign  negotia- 
tion lies  with  the  Government,  while  the  right  to 
make  laws  and  administer  justice  resides  in  the 
ruling  chief.  No  chief  can  therefore  be  properly 
described  as  independent. 

By  including  areas  left  out  of  account  by  the  Census 
Commissioner,  but  which  for  present  purposes  may 
properly  be  included,  the  area  of  India  outside  direct 
British  dominion  is  upwards  of  824,000  square  miles 
and  the  population  of  68,000,000.  The  size  of  the 
native  states  varies  from  that  of  Hyderabad,  which 
is  rather  larger  than  Great  Britain,  to  petty  posses- 
sions of  twenty  square  miles.  The  fact  that  in 
some  parts  of  India,  as  in  Bombay,  native  states 
are  extremely  numerous,  amounting  to  354  in  num- 
ber, whereas  in  other  parts,  like  Madras,  there  are 
only  five,  is  accounted  for  by  the  conditions  exist- 
ing at  the  time  the  British  power  was  consolidated. 
In  the  south  the  Nizam  of  Hyderabad,  the  Nawab 
of  the  Carnatic,  the  Sultan  of  Mysore,  and  the 
Maharaja  of  Travancore  had  swept  away  or  bound 
up  into  one  unit  many  petty  chiefships  and  small 
states  before  the  British  power  was  established. 
In  Bombay,  on  the  other  hand,  the  power  of  the 
Peshwa  had  been  weakened  and  territories  were 
changing  rulers  up  to  the  time  when  the  Mahrattas 
were  overthrown  by  the  English,  and  the  latter 
power  recognised  the  status  quo  and  confirmed  the 
holders  of  the  moment  in  their  otherwise  precarious 
possessions.  Most  of  the  native  states,  however, 

150 


NATIVE    STATES 

are  of  modern  origin,  the  most  ancient  being  those 
included  in  Rajputana.  Central  India,  on  the 
contrary,  is  chiefly  occupied  by  Mahratta  chief- 
tains, who  were  not  attracted  by  the  deserts  of  the 
Rajputs.  As  they  moved  from  the  Mahratta  coun- 
try towards  Delhi,  Sindhia,  Holkar,  and  others 
settled  at  convenient  stations  on  the  way. 

The  Nizams  of  Hyderabad  were  already  practically 
independent  when  the  Emperor  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Mahrattas,  and  Mysore  may  be  regarded  as 
a  revival  by  the  favour  of  the  British  of  an  ancient 
Hindoo  principality.  Travancore  and  Cochin  are 
old-world  Hindoo  states,  which  existed,  as  they  are 
now,  before  the  struggle  between  the  French  and 
English  in  the  south.  The  Mogul  emperors  had  not 
been  satisfied  with  suzerainty  over  the  numerous 
native  states  which  existed  in  their  day.  What 
they  desired  was  dominion,  in  the  quest  of  which 
they  were  led  to  destroy  the  Mohammedan  king- 
doms of  the  Deccan,  which,  had  they  been  preserved, 
might  have  warded  off  the  fatal  onslaught  of  the 
Mahrattas.  The  latter,  in  turn,  simply  desired  to 
levy  as  blackmail  the  fourth  part  of  the  revenue  of 
all  weaker  powers,  and  they  evolved  no  real  policy 
in  regard  to  the  native  states  before  the  ruin  of  the 
confederacy  on  the  field  of  Panipat  in  1761. 

In  South  India,  warfare  with  the  French  and 
local  intrigue  led  to  the  like  relations  with  the  native 
princes,  but  with  the  fall  of  Tippoo  Sultan  at  Mysore, 
the  Nizam  and  the  British  became  united  in  a  last- 
ing alliance.  Bengal  had  become  part  of  British 

151 


INDIA 

India  with  the  grant  of  the  Dewani  or  fiscal  admin- 
istration in  1765,  and  Oudh  was  for  a  time  the  buffer 
state  between  it  and  the  Mahrattas.  The  establish- 
ment, by  the  Treaty  of  Bassein  in  1802,  of  British 
influence  at  Poona  led  to  war  with  Sindhia  and 
Bhonsla,  which  was  followed  by  a  breach  with  Hol- 
kar,  and  subsequently  with  the  Peshwa,  and  by 
the  suppression  of  the  Pindaris,  at  the  conclusion 
of  which,  in  1818,  Rajputana,  Gwalior,  Indore,  and 
Nagpur  were  brought  under  the  British  Protectorate. 
The  war  of  1814-1816  left  Nepaul  independent  as 
to  its  internal  administration,  but  under  the  control 
of  the  Government  of  India  in  respect  of  its  foreign 
relations.  Sind  was  brought  into  the  Company's 
net  in  1843,  and  the  year  1849  saw  the  annexation 
of  the  Punjaub.  At  first  the  British  policy  was 
to  restore  conquered  territory,  merely .  retaining  suf- 
ficient for  their  own  purposes  and  for  the  payment 
of  expenses,  but  since  the  phantom  Emperor  fell 
under  the  control  of  the  Mahrattas  they  ceased  to 
acknowledge  his  authority  and,  in  the  time  of  Lord 
Hastings,  adopted  the  policy  of  maintaining  that 
the  British  held  the  suzerainty  of  India.  Between 
1813  and  the  Mutiny,  most  of  the  existing  treaties 
were  concluded  with  native  states,  and  in  1891  the 
British  Government  laid  it  down,  in  the  case  of 
Manipur,  that  it  is  its  right  and  its  duty  to  settle 
the  succession  in  protected  states.  This  did  not,  of 
course,  imply  any  reaffirmation  of  the  doctrine  of 
lapse,  the  exercise  of  which  is  generally  allowed  to 
have  been  one  of  the  causes  of  the  Mutiny.  It  is 

152 


NATIVE    STATES 

now  clearly  established  that  the  rights  of  chiefs  as 
rulers  will  be  respected,  but  that  the  British  Gov- 
ernment alone  shall  act  for  them  in  dealings  with 
foreign  powers  and  with  other  native  states,  that  the 
inhabitants  of  such  states  are  subjects  of  their  own 
rulers,  and  that  rulers  and  subjects  are  alike  exempt 
from  the  laws  of  British  India.  The  internal  peace 
of  the  native  estates  is  also  secured,  and  they  are 
forbidden  to  employ,  without  permission,  subjects  of 
other  European  nations,  while  their  subjects,  when 
outside  their  own  territory,  become  practically  Brit- 
ish subjects.  As  states  which  cannot  make  war 
on  other  states  in  the  same  position  as  themselves, 
or  on  foreign  powers,  need  no  army,  in  most  treaties 
the  military  forces  which  they  may  maintain  are 
restricted,  and  a  provision  is  inserted  to  the  effect 
that  no  factories  may  be  erected  for  the  production 
of  guns  and  ammunition.  Native  states  are,  on  the 
contrary,  bound  to  render  assistance  to  the  Impe- 
rial forces.  Since  the  time  of  Lord  Dufferin  several 
of  the  larger  units  have  maintained  Imperial  ser- 
vice troops  which  number  nearly  20,000  men  in  all. 
These  are  under  the  inspection  of  British  officers, 
and  when  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment are  available  for  use  in  the  same  manner 
as  British  forces,  though  they  belong  to  the  states 
and  are  recruited  from  its  subjects.  They  have 
already  done  good  service  in  China  and  upon  the 
north-west  frontier.  In  spite  of  the  internal  inde- 
pendence guaranteed  to  the  states  the  paramount 
authority  claims  and  exercises  the  right  to  interfere 

153 


INDIA 

to  correct  serious  abuses,  or  even  to  administer  for 
the  time  being,  when  sufficient  reason  arises.  Thus 
the  late  Gaekwar  of  Baroda  was  deposed,  and  other 
instances  of  similar  action  are  not  wanting.  The 
powers  of  the  Governor-General  in  native  states  are 
exercised  through  political  officers,  generally  called 
Residents,  who  are  the  sole  channel  of  communi- 
cation, and  the  political  service  is  recruited  from  the 
Indian  Civil  Service  and  from  the  Indian  army. 
Residents,  however,  are  usually  appointed  to  native 
states  in  political  relations  with  local  governments 
from  their  own  local  civil  service.  Officers  of  the 
regular  political  service,  having  had  experience  in 
one  native  state  after  another,  better  grasp  the  fact 
that  interference  in  the  ordinary  administration  is 
neither  desirable  nor  permissible,  than  officers  ap- 
pointed from  the  local  civil  service.  The  latter 
almost  invariably  endeavour  to  reproduce  in  the 
native  states  to  which  they  are  appointed  the  con- 
ditions of  the  British  districts  in  which  they  them- 
selves served,  and  they  review  the  administration 
of  their  state  as  if  it  were  a  Government  depart- 
ment of  which  they  were  the  responsible  heads. 
They  are  prone  to  establish  a  regular  system  of  re- 
ceiving petitions  against  the  decisions  of  the  officers 
of  the  state,  and,  in  short,  there  is  much  ground  for 
thinking  that  with  the  permission,  express  or  implied, 
of  the  local  government,  they  wittingly  or  unwit- 
tingly defeat  the  object  of  Government  in  preserving 
native  states,  by  impairing  their  individuality,  and, 
insensibly,  their  qualified  independence.  Even  where 

154 


NATIVE    STATES 

the  subjects  of  the  state  are  prosperous  and  con- 
tented, officers  of  the  character  described  are  far  too 
ready  to  regard  the  state  as  a  field  for  the  exhibition 
of  their  own  administrative  powers  and  for  the  in- 
troduction of  reforms.  The  case  is  still  worse  where 
it  happens  that  the  right  of  the  chief  to  choose  his 
own  minister  is  practically  taken  from  him,  in  con- 
sequence of  advice  tendered  by  the  Resident  or  by 
the  local  government.  There  are  always  factions 
at  these  courts,  one  or  another  of  which  frequently 
gets  the  ear  of  the  political  agent,  and  able  officers 
of  the  state,  well  fitted  to  become  ministers  to  their 
Maharajas,  may  not  be  popular  with  the  little  Euro- 
pean clique  at  the  capital.  The  craze  for  reform 
after  British  patterns,  whether  or  not  required,  is 
such  that  it  ever  points  towards  the  expediency  of 
bringing  in  outsiders.  The  officer  thus  introduced, 
almost  invariably  a  capable  Brahmin,  who  has  event- 
ually to  revert  to  British  employ  and  knows  on  which 
side  his  bread  is  buttered,  immediately  proceeds  to 
justify  his  appointment  by  the  introduction  of  whole- 
sale changes  in  the  administration,  or  of  ambitious 
schemes  which  dissipate  the  cash  reserves  of  the 
state  and  do  not  necessarily  add  to  the  happiness 
of  its  inhabitants.  It  is  of  the  greatest  importance 
that  the  right  men  should  be  appointed  to  political 
charges,  and  probably  few  people  are  less  suited  to 
these  offices  than  the  ordinary  collector  and  magis- 
trate from  British  India,  or  the  heads  of  the  Police 
or  Education  departments,  or  the  like,  under  local 
governments,  who  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to 

155 


INDIA 

introduce  into  native  states  those  principles  of  ad- 
ministration which  they  have  always  practised,  at 
any  rate  to  their  own  complete  satisfaction.  When 
once  this  spirit  is  introduced,  it  is  most  difficult  to 
exorcise,  and  the  ruling  chief,  who  probably  dreads 
its  spread,  is  himself  precluded  from  raising  objec- 
tions by  the  approval  granted  as  a  matter  of  course 
by  the  local  government  to  every  reform,  which  sub- 
stitutes for  native,  British  Indian  methods  of  man- 
agement. Viceroys  may,  and  do,  one  after  another, 
lay  down  the  proper  limits  within  which  the  activi- 
ties of  the  political  agent  should  be  confined,  but, 
however  much  these  homilies  may  be  taken  to  heart 
by  those  who  have  to  look  to  the  Foreign  Office 
for  promotion,  they  become  pale  and  ineffectual  long 
before  they  have  filtered  through  a  local  govern- 
ment to  the  political  agent  who  works  under  its 
direct  authority  and  need  care  nothing  for  the  For- 
eign Office  at  Calcutta.  It  is  a  matter  of  infinite 
concern  to  those  who  value  the  precious  individ- 
uality of  particular  states,  their  historic  continuity, 
their  associations,  and  economic  and  social  charac- 
teristics, to  see  all  those  distinctive  features,  which 
never  can  be  restored,  year  by  year  obliterated,  and 
everything  painted  a  pale  red  colour.  The  educa- 
tion of  chiefs,  moreover,  has  not  been  conspicuously 
successful  because  youths  have  been  brought  up  to 
be  English  rather  than  Indian,  and  to  hanker  after 
visits  to  England  rather  than  residence  among  their 
own  people.  The  chiefs'  colleges  do  good  work, 
and  the  establishment  of  the  Imperial  Cadet  Corps, 

156 


NATIVE    STATES 

though  an  extremely  limited  measure,  is  yet  a  step 
in  the  right  direction.  The  visits  of  Viceroys  to 
native  states  are  of  course  most  desirable,  but 
nothing  less  than  the  strictest  instructions  to  local 
governments  to  order  their  political  agents  to  let 
the  native  states  alone,  and  thus  get  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  supreme  Government  in  this  behalf 
carried  into  effect,  will  avail  to  relieve  the  chiefs 
from  interference  such  as  was  not  contemplated  by 
treaty,  and  is  not  desired  by  the  India  Office  or  the 
Viceroy,  to  judge  from  the  speeches,  for  instance,  of 
Mr.  Morley  and  Lords  Dufferin,  Lansdowne,  Elgin, 
Curzon,  and  Minto. 

The  Government  of  India  has,  besides  relations 
with  the  native  states,  foreign  relations  proper, 
which  are  alike  dealt  with  by  its  Foreign  Office.  It 
has  for  instance  such  relations  with  Turkish  Arabia 
at  Baghdad,  with  the  fortress  of  Aden,  with  Muscat, 
the  islands  of  Perim  and  Socotra,  the  Persian  Gulf, 
and  parts  of  Persia,  Afghanistan,  Tibet,  Siam,  and 
China.  The  possession  of  Aden  connotes  control 
over  the  neighbouring  Arab  tribes,  which  is  acknowl- 
edged by  the  Turkish  Sultan,  and  with  the  Sultan 
of  Muscat  engagements  have  existed  since  1798. 
Treaties  also  exist  with  the  Arab  chiefs  who  dwell 
upon  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  wherein  the 
British  put  down  slavery,  and  wherein  they  have 
an  interest  of  a  character  owned  by  no  other  power. 
The  Sheikh  of  Koweit  is  under  a  treaty  of  obliga- 
tion with  the  Government  of  India,  and  the  contem- 
plated construction  of  a  railway  from  Asia  Minor 

157 


INDIA 

to  the  Gulf,  by  Baghdad  and  Busra,  renders  the 
possession  of,  or  suzerainty  over,  his  small  territory 
of  great  importance.  A  political  resident  is  main- 
tained at  Baghdad  in  order  to  look  after  Indian 
interests  in  and  around  the  Persian  Gulf  and  in 
Turkish  Arabia.  Britain  has  also  preserved  the 
independence  of  the  Sheikh  of  Bassein,  the  centre 
of  the  famous  pearl  fishery,  who  has  entered  into  a 
perpetual  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship  with  us. 
Persian  affairs  are  now  under  the  control  of  the 
British  Foreign  Office,  and  though  the  mission  to 
the  Shah's  Court  was  at  one  time  maintained  out 
of  Indian  revenues,  after  various  changes,  in  1900  the 
Royal  Commission  on  Indian  Expenditure  recom- 
mended that  the  charges  for  legations  and  consul- 
ates in  Persia  should  be  evenly  divided  between 
India  and  the  United  Kingdom.  The  Protectorate 
over  Beluchistan  was  established  in  1855,  and  in 
1857,  after  the  despatch  of  an  expedition  under  Sir 
James  Outram  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  Shah  of 
Persia  undertook  to  resign  all  claims  on  Herat  or 
any  part  of  Afghanistan,  and  in  the  event  of  dif- 
ferences arising  with  the  Amir  to  refer  them  for 
adjustment  to  the  British.  Under  this  agreement 
the  frontiers  between  Persia  and  Beluchistan  and 
Afghanistan  have  been  delimited.  Of  all  the  foreign 
relations  of  the  Government  of  India,  those  with 
Afghanistan  are  of  the  greatest  importance.  The  late 
Amir  enjoyed  a  personal  subsidy  of  twelve  lakhs  of 
rupees  a  year,  to  which  six  more  were  added  when,  in 

*A  lakh  of  rupees  is  £6666. 

158 


NATIVE    STATES 

1893,  the  Durand  agreement  was  negotiated,  which, 
like  all  others,  has  been  continued  with  Abdul  Rah- 
man's son  and  successor,  Habibullah.  An  Indian 
Mohammedan  represents  the  Governor-General  at 
the  Court  of  the  Amir,  who,  in  turn,  sends  an  envoy 
to  the  Government  of  India. 

Tibet  is  under  the  suzerainty  of  the  Chinese 
Government,  to  which  a  nominal  poll-tax  is  paid, 
but  the  government  is  in  the  hands  of  Buddhist 
ecclesiastics,  who  forbid  any  foreigners  to  settle  in 
the  country.  In  1888  a  collision  occurred  with  the 
Tibetans,  and  in  1890  a  convention  was  concluded 
with  China  providing  for  commercial  facilities,  sub- 
sequent to  which,  in  1895,  delegates  were  appointed 
for  the  demarcation  of  the  frontier,  to  which  the 
Tibetans  declined  to  submit.  After  much  negoti- 
ation Colonel  Younghusband,  the  British  Commis- 
sioner, proceeded  to  Khamba  Jong,  but  the  Tibetans 
resisted  his  progress.  In  1904,  however,  the  expe- 
dition advanced  to  Gyantsi,  where  the  Tibetans 
attacked  it,  when  the  fort  was  captured,  and  Sir 
F.  Younghusband  advanced  to  Lhassa,  where  a 
treaty,  to  which  China  assented,  was  signed  in  1906. 

The  long  land  frontier  between  Burma  and  China 
necessarily  leads  to  communications  between  the 
two  Imperial  Governments  concerned.  Since  1875 
the  Home  Government  has  paid  two-thirds  of  the 
cost  of  this  diplomatic  intercourse,  and  now  a  fixed 
contribution  is  annually  made  on  this  account  by 
India.  As  to  our  boundaries  with  Siam,  a  joint 
commission  in  1892-1893  settled  the  frontier  line 

159 


INDIA 

from  the  Mekong  to  Victoria  Point,  and  Great 
Britain  and  France  agreed  to  respect  the  integrity 
of  the  central  districts  of  Siam  in  the  Menam  Val- 
ley, France  recognising  Great  Britain's  influence  in 
the  territory  west  of  the  basin  of  the  Menam,  in 
the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  over  the  adjacent  islands. 
Foreign  possessions  in  India  are  now  limited  to 
five  small  settlements  belonging  to  the  French,  of 
which  Pondicherry  and  Chandernagore  are  the  chief, 
and  three  small  settlements  of  the  Portuguese,  of 
which  Goa  is  the  most  important. 


160 


CHAPTER  VH 

UNREST 

OF  all  the  causes  of  the  unrest  which  has  of  late 
unhappily  prevailed  in  India,  the  chief,  of 
course,  is  the  system  of  education,  which  we 
ourselves  introduced  —  advisedly  so  far  as  the  lim- 
ited vision  went  of  those  responsible,  blindly  in  view 
of  the  inevitable  consequences.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  in  our  schools  pupils  imbibe  sedition 
with  their  daily  lessons :  they  are  fed  with  Rousseau, 
Macaulay,  and  the  works  of  philosophers,  which  even 
in  Oxford  tend  to  pervert  the  minds  of  students 
to  socialistic  and  impractical  dreams,  and  in  India 
work  with  far  greater  force  upon  the  naturally  meta- 
physical minds  of  youths,  generally  quick  to  learn 
by  rote,  for  the  most  part  penniless,  and  thus  ren- 
dered incapable  of  earning  their  living,  except  by 
taking  service  of  a  clerical  character  under  rulers 
whom  they  denounce  as  oppressors  unless  they 
receive  a  salary  at  their  hands. 

The  malcontents  created  by  this  system  have 
neither  respect  for  nor  fear  of  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment. Nor  is  this  surprising,  for  the  literature  upon 
which  they  are  brought  up  in  our  schools  is  fulfilled 
with  destructive  criticism  of  any  system  of  govern- 

161 


INDIA 

ment  founded  upon  authority,  and  the  encourage- 
ment given  in  many  quarters  to  the  Congress  has 
necessarily  confirmed  them  in  their  contempt  for  a 
system  which  fans  a  flame  intended  to  burn  it  to 
ashes. 

Happily,  however,  it  is  not  the  case  that  educated 
Indians,  as  such,  are  necessarily  hostile  to  the  British, 
though  when  subjected  as  they  are,  and  all  India  is, 
to  Brahminical  influences,  they  are  liable  to  become, 
and  too  often  do  become,  actively  disloyal,  the  voice 
of  the  educated  classes  and  of  the  Brahmins  being 
practically  one  and  the  same  thing. 

Various  other  occurrences  tended  to  intensify  the 
feelings  of  disaffection  engendered  in  the  manner 
above  described.  For  the  first  time  in  British-Indian 
history  the  Viceroy  and  Governor-General,  hitherto 
regarded  as  the  all-powerful  agent  of  a  sovereign 
ruling  by  divine  right  —  for  Indians  recognize  no 
mere  parliamentary  title  —  had  engaged  in  a  pitched 
battle  with  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  forces, 
and  had  been  beaten.  More  than  that,  his  corre- 
spondence with  the  Secretary  of  State  on  this  subject 
had,  to  the  general  astonishment,  been  published, 
so  that  all  might  know  exactly  what  had  occurred, 
and,  incidentally,  the  administrative  partition  of 
Bengal  had  been  mentioned  in  such  wise  as  almost 
to  justify  those  who  resented  this  measure  in  think- 
ing that  the  Home  Government  had  sanctioned  it, 
at  least  as  much  because  Lord  Curzon  desired  to 
bring  it  about,  as  because  they  were  themselves 
persuaded  of  its  necessity. 

162 


UNREST 

Then  Lord  Curzon's  Government  had,  with  the 
best  intentions,  and  perhaps  upon  sufficient  grounds, 
taken  a  step  which  inevitably  increased  the  prevail- 
ing disposition  to  disregard  established  authority. 
He  had  appointed  a  commission  to  overhaul  the 
police,  who  are  after  all  the  outward  and  visible 
signs  of  authority,  in  vast  areas;  for  instance  in 
the  greater  part  of  Eastern  Bengal,  in  which  a  Brit- 
ish soldier  is  never,  and  a  sepoy  rarely,  seen.  The 
police  are  by  no  means  an  ideally  perfect  body. 
There  must  be  among  a  large  force,  necessarily 
receiving  small  pay,  some,  perhaps  many,  black 
sheep.  Still  they  are  probably  on  the  whole  by  no 
means  unsuitable  for  the  work  they  have  to  perform, 
and  their  delinquencies  have  been  grossly  exagger- 
ated by  the  classes,  who  have  used  them  as  a  pawn 
in  the  game  of  disaffection.  To  appoint  a  commis- 
sion was  to  allow  publicly  that  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Government  they  needed  radical  reform  and  did 
not  possess  the  confidence  of  their  masters.  So 
another  proof  of  law  and  order  went  by  the  board 
in  popular  estimation. 

Nor  were  causes  wanting  in  England.  No  sooner 
was  the  General  Election  of  1906  over  than  a  meet- 
ing was  held  at  the  instance  of  Sir  William  Wed- 
derburn  to  reconstruct  the  Indian  Parliamentary 
Committee  and  to  consider  "what  action  might  be 
taken  in  the  new  Parliament  to  advance  the  inter- 
ests of  the  Indian  people."  Sir  William  spoke  of 
their  great  dissatisfaction  with  their  condition  and 
said  the  way  to  improve  matters  was  to  work  upon 

163 


INDIA 

the  lines  of  the  Indian  National  Congress.  Sir 
Henry  Cotton,  not  to  be  outdone  in  misrepresenting 
the  position,  said  "the  election  of  an  overwhelming 
Liberal  majority  had  roused  in  India  hopes  and 
aspirations,  and  the  people  were  trembling  in  hope 
that  due  consideration  would  now  be  given  to  their 
wishes."  He  advised  his  friends  to  go  on  agitating, 
but  to  adhere  to  constitutional  methods.  But  the 
grave  anxiety,  which  speeches  such  as  those  have 
not  tended  to  alleviate,  is  lest  these  methods,  what- 
ever they  may  be,  should  pass  into  a  dangerous 
phase  of  discontent  and  disaffection.  The  advice 
of  Sir  W.  Wedderbura,  the  extra-parliamentary 
chief  of  the  Congress  party  in  England,  has  been 
taken,  and  a  few  members  of  Parliament  who  serve 
under  this  banner  have  left  no  opportunity  unused 
in  order  to  promote  the  aims  and  objects  of  the 
Congress. 

For  instance,  they  voted  against  Mr.  Morley  and 
the  Government  on  Mr.  Keir  Hardie's  motion  that 
the  salary  of  the  Secretary  of  State  should  be  brought 
upon  the  estimates,  and  persistently  questioned  Mr. 
Morley  regarding  the  deportation  of  Lajpat  Rai,  to 
which,  of  course,  they  objected,  asked  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Regulation  of  1818,  as  inconsistent  with  the 
principles  of  Liberalism,  and  for  the  appointment  of 
a  royal  commission.  The  Regulation  was  denounced 
as  wholly  unparalleled  in  the  British  Empire.  As  a 
fact,  however,  in  the  East  Africa  Protectorate  an 
order  in  Council  authorises  the  deportation  of  any 
person  who,  in  the  opinion  of  the  administration, 

164 


UNREST 

conducts  himself  so  as  to  be  dangerous  to  the  peace 
and  good  order  of  British  East  Africa.  In  native 
states  in  India  such  power  is  always  taken,  and  not 
infrequently  exercised,  an  instance  having  occurred 
quite  recently  in  Hyderabad.  The  brothers  Natu 
were,  moreover,  dealt  with  under  this  Regulation 
not  many  years  since  in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  and 
it  will  probably  be  found  that  in  the  agency  tracts 
of  the  Madras  Presidency  instances  of  its  use  have 
recurred  at  irregular  intervals  to  the  close  of  last 
century. 

Strong  attacks  were  also  made  on  Renter's  Agency, 
which  the  agitators  in  India  were  unable  to  muzzle, 
and  which  has  done  good  public  service  by  faith- 
fully reporting  events  from  Calcutta.  Mr.  Morley 
refused  to  depart  from  the  attitude  he  had  taken  up 
regarding  Lala  Lajpat  Rai,  and  said  that  he  saw  no 
cause  for  apology  in  the  use  made  of  the  Regulation 
of  1818,  though  he  would  be  the  first  to  rejoice  when 
its  application  would  no  longer  be  necessary,  and  as 
a  fact  he  released  the  two  agitators,  Lala  Lajpat 
Rai  and  Ajit  Singh,  when  they  had  been  detained 
for  about  six  months. 

Nor  were  the  anti-British  agitators  without  sup- 
port in  England  other  than  that  afforded  by  the 
British  Branch  of  the  Congress  and  their  supporters 
in  and  out  of  Parliament. 

At  Oxford  a  University  India  Society  has  been 
formed,  one  of  the  objects  of  which  is  the  discus- 
sion of  the  advisability  of  introducing  representative 
government.  At  its  meeting  addresses  were  deliv- 

165 


INDIA 

ered  by  Sir  W.  Wedderburn  and  Mr.  Gokhale,  when 
the  latter  said  that  "if  the  Indians  had  to  choose 
between  gratitude  for  the  past  and  duty  to  their  own 
people  there  could  only  be  one  choice."  This  was 
mild  for  the  speaker,  but  it  would  do  him  good  to 
try  the  effect  of  a  speech  on  similar  lines  at  a  Rus- 
sian university.  At  Cambridge  also  there  is  an 
Indian  Club,  which  is  believed  to  be  none  too  loyal, 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of  Edinburgh,  where  till 
now  Indian  students  have  been  left  like  lost  dogs  to 
wander  at  will,  a  state  of  affairs  which  an  influential 
committee  now  seeks  to  amend  by  providing  a  club 
under  responsible  and  respectable  management. 

In  Dublin  and  elsewhere  violent  attacks  were  pub- 
lished upon  the  Government  of  India,  which  in  Sep- 
tember prohibited  the  introduction  into  that  country 
of  Justice,  The  Gaelic  American,  and  The  Indian 
Sociologist,  the  last-named  organ  at  any  rate  richly 
deserving  to  be  excluded,  whatever  may  be  the 
character  of  the  other  two.  The  editor,  an  M.A.  of 
Oxford,  is  described  as  the  president  of  the  Indian 
Home  Rule  Society,  which  is  no  doubt  some  asso- 
ciation designed  to  tamper  with  the  loyalty  of  young 
Indians  in  this  country.  Inasmuch  as  this  person 
has,  of  course  falsely,  described  himself,  because  he 
is  a  subject  of  a  native  state,  as  owing  no  allegiance 
to  Britain,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  is  not  deprived 
of  the  hospitality  he  abuses,  by  being  expelled  as  an 
undesirable  alien. 

Mr.  Morley  has  appointed  a  committee  to  con- 
sider what  can  be  done  to  afford  to  Indian  students 

166 


UNREST 

protection  from  agitators,  who  lie  in  wait  for  them 
and  provide  them  with  lodgings,  the  atmosphere  of 
which  reeks  with  disloyalty  to  the  British  Crown. 

Among  other  causes  of  the  unrest  must  also  be 
reckoned  the  measures  taken  to  stamp  out  plague 
in  Bombay  Presidency  and  the  prohibition  of  the 
holding  of  great  assemblages  of  pilgrims  at  religious 
shrines  during  the  prevalence  of  cholera.  It  is  not 
the  case  that  the  salt-tax,  lately  twice  reduced,  pro- 
voked opposition,  for  it  is  no  new  thing,  but  was  an 
important  source  of  revenue  under  the  Moguls.  Its 
levy  therefore  is  not  resented  and  illicit  manufacture 
and  smuggling  have  declined,  while  consumption 
has  increased,  so  that  the  tax  evidently  does  not 
press  hardly  upon  the  people,  though  the  Deccani 
Brahmin  and  the  Bengali  Babu  naturally  say  it 
does,  in  order  to  discredit  the  British  Government, 
who  get  little  else  by  way  of  revenue  from  many 
millions  who  profit  by  its  existence. 

Among  the  agricultural  population  there  is  as  yet 
no  serious  discontent;  it  is  among  the  town  dwellers 
and  the  artisans  that  the  seditious  speakers  and 
writers  find  support,  and  only  among  Hindoos  in 
the  towns.  There  is,  however,  and  must  always  be, 
a  certain  solidarity  of  Indians  against  Europeans, 
which  Brahmins  can  easily  divert  towards  disaffec- 
tion, and  though  they  are  the  natural  and  intellec- 
tual leaders  of  the  people  they  have  now  joined 
hands  with  anti-Brahminical  societies,  such  as  the 
Arya  Samaj,  which  was  at  the  root  of  the  agitation 
in  the  Punjaub.  This  sect  or  society  accepts  the 

167 


INDIA 

Vedas  as  the  only  and,  when  rightly  interpreted,  the 
infallible  revelation,  but  rejects  all  the  accretions 
and  additions  to  the  sacred  texts  and  all  the  corpus 
of  rites  and  ceremonies  which  now  forms  the  actual 
working  religion.  The  Brahmins,  once  in  supreme 
power,  would,  however,  make  short  work  of  the 
innovators  and  heterodox  sects  by  whose  help  they 
had  reached  their  goal. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  speak  of  want  of  sympathy  as 
one  of  the  causes  of  the  unrest.  Sympathy  without 
sentiment  is  indeed  a  great  gift,  though  ill-regulated 
sentiment  is  necessarily  either  foolish  or  mischievous, 
or  deserving  of  both  epithets.  It  is  easy  to  pre- 
scribe the  treatment,  not  so  easy  to  apply  it,  when 
sympathy  with  one  exposes  the  sympathiser  to  the 
suspicion  of  another  race,  caste,  class,  tribe,  sect, 
or  religion.  Rigid  impartiality  does  not  make  for 
effusive  sympathy  —  the  two  things  are  hardly  com- 
patible, and  the  first  is  essential. 

No  doubt,  however,  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Euro- 
pean industrial  army  are  often  guilty  of  arrogance, 
and  generally  of  ignorance,  in  their  life  and  conver- 
sation among  the  natives,  though,  as  their  numbers 
are  not  large,  they  may  be  dismissed  as  other  than 
a  serious  factor  in  the  situation.  The  planters,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  an  important  and  a  wholly  bene- 
ficial element.  Behar,  alongside  Bengal,  and  well 
in  touch  with  Calcutta,  the  capital  of  Babudom  and 
India,  is  prosperous,  contented,  and  without  a  parti- 
cle of  sympathy  with  the  agitators.  This  is  due  in 
a  great  degree  to  the  fact  that  it  is,  and  has  been  for 

168 


UNREST 

over  eighty  years,  the  home  of  large  numbers  of 
European  planters,  who  are  respected  and  beloved 
by  those  whom  they  employ,  for  whom  they  care, 
as  it  is  feared  few  Indian  employers  of  labour  care. 
A  similar  state  of  things  may  be  observed  in  other 
planting  districts,  with  many  of  which  I  am  inti- 
mately acquainted,  and  the  planter  keeps  touch 
with  the  people,  not  with  the  English-speaking  upper 
castes  and  classes,  with  whom,  and  not  by  accident, 
the  official  is  almost  exclusively  associated. 

The  European  planter  is  a  most  useful  auxiliary 
and  a  most  valuable  adviser  to  the  administration, 
to  whom  he  can  impart  information  by  which  the 
latter  can  otherwise  hardly  come.  It  is  difficult 
here  to  avoid  reference  to  the  recent  judgment  of 
Mr.  Justice  Mitra,  in  regard  to  the  murder  of  Mr. 
Blomfield  by  a  gang  of  coolies,  which  has  given  rise 
to  natural  apprehension  amongst  the  planters  of 
Behar.  To  the  lay  mind  it  appears  that  the  learned 
judge  laid  it  down  that  a  sufficiently  large  number 
of  men  may,  without  committing  murder,  kill  a  soli- 
tary victim,  provided  no  one  blow  dealt  by  any  one 
of  the  gang  was  sufficient  in  itself  to  cause  death.  *  It 
is  not  surprising  that  the  planters  have  memorial- 
ised the  Secretary  of  State,  and,  though  it  is  difficult 
to  see  what  he  can  do,  the  effect  of  such  a  judgment 
cannot  be  other  than  disastrous,  and  it  may  be  per- 
mitted to  hope,  at  any  rate,  that  in  no  long  time  it 
may  as  a  precedent  be  superseded  by  another  in 
which  equity  may  subsist  alongside  law. 

Such  are  some  of  the  chief  causes  which  have 

169 


INDIA 

enabled  disaffected  Bengali  Babus,  with  the  aid  of 
a  licentious  press,  to  work  up  anti-British  feeling  in 
Bengal.  Upon  this  or  upon  any  question,  however, 
it  is  well  to  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us,  and  a 
representative  critic  is  M.  Raymond  Recouly,  the 
well-known  French  publicist.  Writing  in  the  Revue 
Politique,  he  admits  that  the  English,  wherever  they 
go,  take  with  them  peace,  justice,  and  material 
prosperity,  born  of  commercial  and  industrial  devel- 
opment, but  holds  that  they  do  not  understand  how 
it  is  precisely  this  material  prosperity  which  gives 
rise  to  new  aspirations  and  desires.  In  proportion 
as  people  acquire  material  well-being  so  do  they 
exact  more  liberty.  Then,  to  point  the  moral,  the 
writer  adds  that  Lord  Curzon  was  too  stiff  and 
unbending,  too  full  of  Csesarism  in  his  external  and 
internal  policy.  It  is  not  clear  what  the  writer 
would  have  us  do.  Should  we  cease  to  bring  about 
material  prosperity,  or  should  we  regard  it,  when 
created,  as  an  extinguisher  of  the  benevolent  power 
which  gave  it  birth?  —  and  in  that  event  what 
becomes  of  the  masses,  who  have  profited  by  this 
regeneration?  Are  they  to  be  handed  over  to  the 
classes,  whose  sole  aptitude  is  for  destructive  criti- 
cism, and  whose  wish  is  to  govern  the  masses  in  the 
stead  of  the  creators  of  prosperity  at  whose  success 
they  carp,  whose  methods  they  criticise,  and  whose 
success  they,  for  their  part,  deny? 

The  so-called  partition  of  Bengal  was,  of  course, 
one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  unrest,  though  it 
rather  focussed  disaffection  which  had  previously 

170 


UNREST 

existed  among  the  Bengali  Babus,  than  was  itself 
the  cause  of  the  agitation. 

The  whole  movement  originated,  to  a  great  extent, 
with  a  small  society  of  the  literary,  or,  as  they  are 
called  in  Russia,  the  intelligent  classes,  who  desire 
to  retain  a  monopoly  of  the  Government  appoint- 
ments, which,  with  the  exception  of  those  enjoyed 
exclusively  by  the  Imperial  Civil  Service,  they  had 
hitherto  enjoyed  in  the  undivided  province  of  Ben- 
gal, and  who  saw  in  the  partition  an  attempt  to 
break  Hindoo  predominance.  The  members  of  this 
small  society  control  the  native  press,  by  means  of 
which  they  established  at  once  a  paper  boycott,  a 
paper  national  fund,  a  paper  national  unity,  and 
a  paper  home  industries  association,  as  a  result  of 
which  no  English  goods  were  to  be  imported  into 
India.  Although  the  latter,  commonly  called  Sva- 
deshi,  has  upon  the  whole  failed,  not  without,  how- 
ever, having  inflicted  great  loss  and  suffering  upon 
innocent  people  —  chiefly  Mohammedans  —  it  is  yet 
capable  of  mischief,  for  the  party  which  promotes 
it  now  asserts  that  imported  British  goods  are 
tainted  like  the  greased  cartridges,  that  European 
salt  is  purified  with  blood,  and  sugar  with  bones,  and 
that  European  piece-goods  are  sized  with  the  fat 
of  cows  and  pigs.  Moreover,  Svadeshi  was  merged 
into  Svaraj,  or  independence,  and  denunciation  of 
British  goods  eventuated  in  the  condemnation  of 
British  rulers.  Unchecked  by  Government,  as  for 
a  long  time  they  were,  the  agitators  next  endeav- 
oured in  vain  to  undermine  the  loyalty  of  the  army, 

171 


INDIA 

but  it  gives  occasion  for  thought  that  this  agitation, 
which  only  began  in  the  middle  of  1904,  has  been 
spread  throughout  India,  by  means  of  the  vernacu- 
lar journals,  with  a  success  which  an  electioneering 
agency  in  England  might  well  envy. 

Lord  Minto,  following  upon  utterances  by  his 
predecessors  to  the  same  effect,  said  in  one  of  his 
speeches  that  a  genuine  Svadeshi  movement  would 
always  have  the  support  of  the  Government  of  India. 
The  word  itself  means  "own  country,"  and  it  in  no 
way  connotes  a  boycott  of  foreign  goods,  fomen- 
tation of  labour  troubles,  and  seditious  disorder. 
Agitators  had  induced  large  numbers  of  people  to 
make  a  vow  to  purchase  only  home-manufactured 
fabrics,  but  no  effort  was  made  in  Bengal  to  initiate 
or  develop  industrial  enterprise,  in  respect  of  which 
this  province  has  been  surpassed  by  most  other 
provinces.  Its  jute  mills  are  controlled  by  Euro- 
peans, while  the  cotton  spinning  and  weaving  indus- 
tries of  Nagpur,  Ahmedabad,  and  Bombay  have 
been  chiefly  carried  on  with  Indian  capital.  It  is  in 
Bombay  at  present  that  real  efforts  are  being  made 
to  develop  a  true  Svadeshi  policy,  and  an  iron  and 
steel  company  with  a  large  capital  has  recently 
been  floated  there  by  the  sons  of  the  late  Mr.  Tata, 
who  founded  the  Institute  of  Science  at  Bangalore. 
This  new  company  will  be  financed  by  Indians, 
managed  by  Indians,  and  the  iron  ore  used  will  be 
Indian.  Great  preparations  are  being  made  for  the 
works,  which  will  be  situated  on  the  Bengal-Nagpur 
Railway  at  Sini,  and  the  plant  to  be  erected  will 

172 


UNREST 

have  a  minimum  capacity  for  the  annual  output 
of  120,000  tons  of  pig-iron,  two-thirds  of  which  will 
be  converted  into  finished  steel.  The  Government 
of  India  is  giving  this  great  enterprise  very  practical 
assistance. 

Another  great  scheme  projected  is  the  utilisation 
of  the  rainfall  of  the  Western  Ghats  for  the  genera- 
tion of  electric  power  to  work  the  cotton  mills  of  Bom- 
bay city.  These  schemes  illustrate  what  Lord  Minto 
describes  as  the  true  Svadeshi  movement,  and  Bengal 
will  be  searched  in  vain  for  any  proof  of  the  existence 
of  this  spirit. 

The  policy  of  Svadeshi  has  already  proved  a  fail- 
ure, the  people  declining  to  taboo  foreign  goods, 
which  till  now  are  cheaper  and  better  than  those 
produced  in  their  own  country.  The  policy  of  Sva- 
raj  must  also  fail  so  long  as  England  has  a  spark  of 
spirit  left  and  continues,  for  India's  good,  and  for 
her  own,  to  govern  the  latter  country. 

Notwithstanding  a  judicial  pronouncement  to  the 
contrary,  the  word  Svaraj  can  only  mean,  and  of 
course  is  only  intended  to  mean,  independence.  The 
pretence  that  it  means  self-government  under  the 
dominion  of  another  power,  impossible  where  half 
the  world  intervenes  and  the  self-governed  are 
300,000,000  as  against  40,000,000  of  the  dominion 
holders,  is  altogether  too  thin.  No  such  form  of 
government  as  that  indicated  has  ever  been  known 
to  Asiatics,  nor  is  any  such  form  of  government 
possible.  Those  who  cry  out  for  Svaraj  want  to  be 
rid  of  British  administration,  and  all  they  would 

173 


INDIA 

retain  that  is  British  is  the  protection  of  the  fleet  and 
army,  for  which  a  new  generation  of  Englishmen, 
madder  than  their  predecessors,  would  pay,  while 
all  the  appointments  and  all  the  power  in  the  pro- 
tected continent  would  fall,  not  to  its  inhabitants, 
but  to  one  small  oligarchy  of  Brahmins  who  despise 
them. 

Intimately  connected  with  Svadeshi  is  the  boycott 
movement  started  in  1905,  which  has  been  practi- 
cally confined  to  Bengal  and  Eastern  Bengal,  and 
in  spite  of  which  the  imports  of  cotton  goods  and 
sugar  have  concurrently  grown  in  volume.  There 
has  been  talk  of  starting  Svadeshi  cotton  mills,  and  of 
other  Svadeshi  enterprises,  but  it  has  had  no  result. 
The  agitators  never  calculated  their  requirements 
in  men  and  money,  but  they  have  been  vociferous 
in  speech,  and  the  anniversary  of  the  movement 
is  held  in  Calcutta,  where  Mr.  Surendra  Nath 
Bannerji  harangues  a  crowd  composed  chiefly  of 
students  and  claims  great  things  for  his  policy. 
Meanwhile  in  Bande  Mataram  readers  were  reminded 
that  the  independence  of  America  first  found  expres- 
sion in  the  boycott  of  British  goods,  and  that  India's 
position  was  similar  to  that  of  all  subject  nations 
in  the  initial  stage  of  their  struggle. 

Lest  there  be  any  mistake  as  to  the  attitude  of  the 
boycott  towards  the  produce  of  Britain,  let  me  quote 
the  Sanjibani:  "Oh,  brothers,  we  will  not  pollute  our 
hands  by  touching  English  goods.  Let  English 
goods  rot  in  the  warehouses  and  be  eaten  by  white 
ants  and  rats.'*  ; 

174 


UNREST 

The  mention  of  the  Bande  Mataram  newspaper 
suggests  a  word  upon  the  signification  of  this  now 
famous  expression,  which  is  translated:  "Hail,  Moth- 
erland!" whenever  the  object  is  to  give  it  an  inno- 
cent and  commonplace  meaning.  The  words,  however, 
mean  not:  "Hail,  Motherland!"  but  "Hail,  Mother!" 
"I  reverence  the  mother" — that  is  to  say,  Mother 
Kali,  the  goddess  of  death  and  destruction.  The 
word  mataram  is  never  used  in  the  sense  of  the  mother 
country.  I  have,  myself,  never  come  across  it  with 
this  signification,  neither  has  Mr.  Grierson,  who  at 
any  rate  is  a  great  authority.  The  expression,  in 
fact,  is  on  all  fours  with  the  cry:  "Victory  to  Mother 
Kali!"  which  is  associated  with  many  scenes  of  riot 
and  bloodshed. 

It  is  an  appeal  to  the  lower  instincts  and  ideals  of 
Hindooism  in  its  most  demoralising  aspects.  Students 
now  shout  the  cry  into  the  ears  of  passing  white 
men  far  more  aggressively  than  Chinamen  exclaim, 
or  did  at  any  rate  twenty  years  ago:  "Fankwei,"  or 
foreign  devil,  as  an  European  passed  them  in  the 
street. 

Again  consider  the  origin  of  the  phrase.  Bande 
Mataram  is  the  rebel  national  song.  It  was  put  by 
Babu  Bankim  Chandra  Chatterjee  into  the  mouths 
of  Hindoo  Sanyasis  who  rebelled  against  their  sov- 
ereign lord,  the  Nawab  of  Bengal,  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  novel  "Anandamath"  was  published 
in  1881,  and  of  course,  owing  to  its  origin,  the  phrase 
Bande  Mataram  is  peculiarly  obnoxious  to  the  Mo- 
hammedans. It  is  now  habitually  used  with  the  inten- 

175 


INDIA 

tion  of  conveying  an  insult  to  them  and  to  the 
English,  and  so  kills  two  birds  with  the  one  stone, 
while  boycott  and  Svadeshi  were  both  alike  intended 
to  further  the  anti-partition  policy,  upon  which  the 
efforts  of  the  agitators  in  Bengal  and  Poona  were 
concentrated. 

The  case  for  partition  is  seldom  or  never  stated, 
and  the  fact  is  always  overlooked  that  it  had  already 
been  decided  by  Lord  Elgin  that  Bengal  was  too 
large  and  that  division  was  necessary.  ; 

The  political  agitators,  who  organised  and  main- 
tained the  anti-partition  movement,  and  control  the 
Bengali  press,  are  for  the  most  part  journalists  and 
schoolmasters  —  the  latter  being  very  frequently 
politicians  —  barristers  and  pleaders,  whose  inter- 
est it  is  to  concentrate  their  legal  practice  in  Cal- 
cutta, and  zemindars  with  large  estates  in  Eastern 
Bengal,  who,  living  by  choice  in  Calcutta,  find  it 
convenient  to  have  their  Government  headquarters 
there,  instead  of  at  far-away  and  provincial  Dacca. 
Others  who  are  in  the  same  position  in  this  behalf 
are  the  landlords,  who  saw  their  interests  attacked, 
and  the  ascendency  of  Calcutta  and  of  the  Ben- 
gali-Hindoo element  threatened,  by  this  division  of 
Bengal.  False  stories  were  accordingly  circulated 
to  the  effect  that  the  object  of  the  Government  was 
to  raise  the  taxes,  to  deport  coolies,  and  such  like 
rumours.  All  through  the  campaign  Hindoo  school- 
boys and  students  have  been  urged  into  the  front  of 
the  battle,  while  the  real  protagonists  have  been 
hidden  away  in  the  background,  and  many  of  these 

176 


UNREST 

youths  have  been  ruined  for  life  by  being  impli- 
cated in  criminal  cases,  for  which  they  have  to  thank 
their  Babu  tutors  in  the  arts  of  agitation.  A  cir- 
cular was  distributed  through  the  agency  of  the  bar 
libraries  in  Eastern  Bengal,  calling  the  English 
lying  cheats,  who  are  ruining  our  life  in  the  world, 
ruining  our  industries,  and  importing  their  own 
manufactures,  plunder  our  fields,  and  throw  us  into 
the  jaws  of  fever,  famine,  and  plague.  It  is  our 
blood  they  are  sucking.  Shall  we  bear  it  any  more? 
These  Feringhees  have  divided  our  Golden  Bengal 
into  two  parts.  Swear  in  the  name  of  Kali  that 
we  Hindoos  and  Mussulmans  will  serve  our  country 
united,  and  will  behead  anyone  who  obstructs." 

If  the  Bengalis  had  been  anxious  to  prove  that 
there  were  good  reasons  for  decentralisation  of  the 
administration,  rather  than  for  concentration  at 
Calcutta,  they  could  not  have  been  more  successful 
than  they  have  been.  Partition  of  course  affects 
the  ascendency  of  the  educated  Bengalis,  and  there- 
fore the  interests  of  the  lawyers,  schoolmasters, 
journalists,  and  others  whose  prosperity  depends 
upon  the  continued  influence  of  Calcutta  over  the 
whole  of  Bengal.  Partition,  moreover,  dealt  a  blow 
at  the  political  influence  they  were  acquiring  by 
simulating  and  stimulating  the  sense  of  national 
unity  amongst  the  Hindoo  population  of  the  prov- 
ince. Bengalis  themselves  have  no  particular  claim 
to  be  regarded  as  a  nation,  and,  as  shown  elsewhere, 
they  are  by  no  means  the  most  educated  people  in 
India;  indeed,  the  masses  of  the  province  are  steeped 

177 


INDIA 

in  superstition,  and  the  proportion  of  Bengalis  edu- 
cated, in  the  European  sense,  is  admitted  to  be 
about  one  per  cent,  of  the  population.  This  small 
minority,  however,  has  been  very  effectively  occu- 
pied in  debauching  the  loyalty  of  the  student  class, 
prone  in  every  country  to  revolutionary  feelings, 
cereus  in  vitium  fleetly  and  flattered  at  being  treated 
as  a  political  power. 

In  and  around  Dacca,  the  capital  of  the  new 
province  of  Eastern  Bengal,  the  centre  of  a  most 
prosperous  country  and  of  the  jute  rindustry,  there 
has  been  in  the  past,  until  the  constitution  of  the 
new  province,  very  little,  far  too  little,  European 
supervision,  and  the  local  land-owners,  money-lenders, 
and  their  agents  have  acquired  great,  nay,  excessive 
influence.  These  are  the  classes  known  as  Babus, 
and  with  their  aid  it  was  possible  to  turn  the  Sva- 
deshi  movement  into  new  and  extended  channels. 
Everywhere  the  people  were  told  that  the  English 
were  exploiting  and  ruining  the  country.  The 
national  Volunteer  Movement,  which  was  originally 
a  harmless  physical  exercise  and  athletic  club  sort 
of  association,  was,  after  the  model  of  the  "Boxers," 
pressed  into  the  service,  and  since  the  Moham- 
medans are  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  Eastern 
Bengal,  and  one  Mohammedan  is  equal  to  at  least 
three  Hindoos  in  fair  fight,  and  since  the  former 
naturally  approve  of  the  elevation  into  a  Lieuten- 
ant-Governorship of  the  province  in  which  they  are 
in  the  majority,  the  national  volunteers  had  a  very 
moderate  success.  Nevertheless,  they  tried  to  force 

178 


UNREST 

the  Mohammedans  to  join  them  in  the  anti-parti- 
tion demonstrations,  which  led  to  riots  at  Jamal- 
pore,  among  other  places.  One  Hindoo  was  shot  in 
the  thigh,  and  an  old  man  and  a  boy  were  beaten 
to  death  while  engaged  in  loot,  and  a  few  Hindoo 
widows  were  carried  off  by  Mohammedans,  who, 
unlike  their  own  males,  have  no  objection  to  rela- 
tions with  them.  Naturally,  this  riot,  which  the 
Hindoos  and  not  the  Mussulmans  provoked,  was 
exaggerated  into  a  terrible  onslaught  by  the  Mus- 
sulmans upon  the  peaceful  Hindoo  population. 

It  may  fairly  be  said  that  the  boycott  and  volun- 
teer movements  have  failed  in  Eastern  Bengal  to  do 
more  than  produce  a  feeling  of  unrest  and  to  under- 
mine the  discipline  of  the  students'  classes,  and  it  is 
admitted  that  the  deportation  of  the  two  agitators 
in  the  Punjaub  produced  an  immediate  effect  for 
good  upon  the  agitation  in  this  far-distant  region. 

Nothing  is  too  unlikely  for  the  supporters  of  the 
anti-partition  movement  to  urge.  Thus  we  find  Sir 
Henry  Cotton  writing  in  an  English  provincial 
paper  "that  the  leaders  of  both  sections  of  the  com- 
munity in  Eastern  Bengal  are,  for  the  most  part, 
united  in  condemning  partition,  but  that  the  igno- 
rant and  unruly  masses  of  the  Mohammedans  have 
been  roused  to  acts  of  violence  by  fanatic  emissaries. 
Vain  efforts  were  made  to  show  that  certain  Moham- 
medan leaders  did  not  approve  of  the  partition,  but 
they  completely  failed. "  Had  any  disproof  of  Sir  H. 
Cotton's  allegations  been  needed,  it  was  afforded  by 
Rafiuddin  Ahmad,  President  of  the  Mohammedan 

179 


INDIA 

Conference,  held  at  Lucknow,  to  adopt  the  address 
to  Lord  Minto,  who  wrote  to  the  Times  to  say  that 
each  member  of  this  deputation  was  asked  his  opin- 
ion, and  that  all  were  unanimous  in  their  approval 
of  partition,  and  indeed  the  Mohammedans  had 
already,  in  each  province,  passed  a  resolution  in 
favour  of  the  change  —  a  fact  well  known  to  Lord 
Minto,  who,  in  answering  the  address,  thanked  the 
Mohammedan  community  of  Eastern  Bengal  for 
their  moderation  and  self-restraint.  Mr.  Rafiuddin 
Ahmad  further  said,  what  is  notorious  to  all  who 
have  any  acquaintance  with  the  subject,  that  the 
partition  agitation  is  engineered  in  England,  and 
kept  up  in  India,  owing  to  the  hopes  which  certain 
members  of  Parliament  hold  out  to  ignorant  people 
in  Bengal  that  Mr.  Morley  will  yield  if  sufficient 
pressure  were  brought  to  bear  upon  him.  Thus 
Mr.  O'Donnell,  M.P.,  for  instance,  wrote  to  Mr. 
Banner ji: 

"Keep  on  agitating  and  do  so  effectively,  large 
meetings  are  the  most  useful,  you  have  the  justest  of 
causes,  and  I  hope  you  will  make  your  voice  heard. 
Everything  depends  on  you  in  India,  and  remember 
a  Whig  does  nothing  unless  pressed.  Have  mass 
meetings  by  the  dozen  in  every  district,  indoor  and 
out  of  doors.  Morley  will  yet  yield." 

Such  encouragement  produced  no  little  effect,  for 
Bengalis  are  notoriously  more  excitable  than  the 
more  staid  and  phlegmatic  followers  of  the  Prophet. 
Moreover  the  Hindooism  of  Bengal  is  of  a  peculiar 
type,  more  morbid  and  emotional  than  elsewhere, 

180 


UNREST 

and,  as  Mr.  Oman,  a  very  well-informed  and  recent 
writer,  held,  more  calculated  to  effeminate  the  race. 
It  is  among  the  Bengalis  that  the  most  popular  wor- 
ship is  that  of  Kali,  the  eponymous  heroine  of  Cal- 
cutta, the  mother  of  Bande  Mataram,  the  goddess, 
who  loves  and  exacts  bloody  sacrifices,  in  our  day, 
of  goats,  but  before  it,  of  human  beings  as  well  as 
of  animals.  It  is  among  the  Bengalis  that  licentious 
rites  are  usual  at  the  Durgapuja  festival,  and  it  was 
in  the  temple  of  Kali  at  Calcutta  that  seditious 
meetings  have  of  late  been  held.  It  is  in  Bengal 
alone  that  the  Kulin  Brahmins  practise  a  peculiarly 
bad  form  of  polygamy.  It  would  not  become  a 
subject  of  the  British  Empire,  and  I  at  any  rate 
would  never  suggest  that  we  should  exact  in  Bengal 
the  ethical  standard,  or  rather  ideal,  which  obtains 
in  Britain,  but  that  this  is  polygamy  in  excelsis  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that  the  partisans  of  the 
Babus  have  endeavoured  in  vain  to  deny  its  exist- 
ence, including  an  ex-official  of  the  Bengal  Gov- 
ernment who  has  thrown  in  his  lot  with  this 
party  and  actually  went  so  far  as  to  say  that 
Kulinism  was  extinct,  until  his  solitary  voice  was 
drowned  in  a  dissenting  chorus  of  unimpeachable 
authority. 

It  is  partly  owing  to  this  emotional  and  excitable 
temperament  that  the  Bengalis  have  easily  been 
induced  to  imitate  and  take  part  in  attacks  upon 
Mohammedans.  Nevertheless,  the  participators  in 
such  disorders  have  been  almost  exclusively  dwellers 
in  towns  who  have  come  under,  or  were  originally 

181 


INDIA 

under,  the  influence  of  the  Babu  element.  The  ordi- 
nary Bengali  villager  is  a  peaceable  and  estimable 
person,  and  he  and  his  representatives  have  lost  no 
opportunity  of  manifesting  their  disapproval  of  the 
anti-partition  agitation.  It  is,  however,  the  case 
that  in  the  large  towns  classes  which  have  hitherto 
been  loyal  and  orderly  in  character  have  been  guilty 
of  riotous  conduct.  For  instance,  in  the  riots  which 
occurred  last  year  at  Calcutta  on  October  2d  and 
3d,  while  the  charges  against  the  police  were  proved 
to  be  grossly  exaggerated,  the  Government  of  Bengal 
discovered  the  fact  that  the  disturbances  took  their 
origin  in  the  conduct  of  a  usually  orderly  class  of 
people,  from  which  it  drew  the  conclusion  that  they 
were  the  outcome  of  the  writings  and  speeches  of 
agitators.  The  Lieutenant-Governor,  Sir  Andrew 
Fraser,  warned  the  Government  of  India  of  much 
more  serious  possibilities,  if  a  naturally  turbulent 
class  followed  this  example,  as  a  direct  outcome  of 
the  persistent  campaign  on  the  platform  and  in  the 
press,  carried  on  with  the  object  of  bringing  consti- 
tuted authority  into  contempt,  and  encouraging 
resistance  to  the  police.  Few  will  be  of  the  opinion 
that  Sir  A.  Fraser  spoke  too  soon. 

In  like  manner  unusual  and  unfortunate  features 
distinguished  the  assaults  committed  by  Hindoos  on 
Mohammedans  at  Comilla  in  March  last  year,  when 
the  former,  incensed  by  a  meeting  held  by  the  latter 
religionists  in  support  of  the  partition,  attacked  the 
Nawab  of  Decca,  assaulted  his  private  secretary,  and 
killed  and  wounded  some  of  his  followers. 

182 


UNREST 

Among  the  leaders  of  the  anti-British  faction  are 
men  of  considerable  ability  —  for  instance,  Mr. 
Bepin  Chandra  Pal,  who  has  fully  expounded  the 
gospel  of  the  new  movement.  He,  like  the  writer 
of  these  pages,  was  present  when  the  first  Congress 
met  in  Madras  in  1887,  and  he  again  visited  the 
southern  capital  last  year,  and  explained  that  the 
British  had  not  kept  their  promises,  and  that  he  had 
lost  faith  in  them. 

He  denounced  Mr.  Morley's  statement  that  so  far 
as  his  imagination  reached,  so  long  must  the  Govern- 
ment be  personal  and  absolute,  and,  unlike  some 
adherents  of  the  Congress  in  England,  he  admitted 
that  there  could  be  no  constitutional  agitation  in 
India.  He  referred  to  a  full  revelation  of  the  policy 
of  self-government  which  was  proclaimed  by  Mr. 
Dadabhai  Naoroji  at  the  Congress  of  1906.  Good 
government,  even  if  the  British  Government  became 
good,  was  no  substitute  for  self-government.  India 
could  not  be  kept  by  the  sword,  the  army  was  not 
big  enough.  It  was  the  natives  of  India  now  who 
governed  India,  the  British  only  stood  at  the  top  and 
took  the  biggest  pay.  The  British  incubus  once 
removed,  prohibitive  tariffs  would  be  imposed  on 
Manchester  and  Sheffield  goods,  and  English  trade 
with  India  would  soon  be  a  thing  of  the  past.  Eng- 
lishmen would  be  refused  admittance  to  the  country, 
and  British  capital  would  be  rejected.  If  the  revo- 
lution in  India  were  permitted  to  be  peaceful,  the 
United  States  of  India  would  be  evolved  and  the 
segis  of  Britain  might  be  left  till  a  conflict  arose.  If 

183 


INDIA 

the  situation  then  called  for  a  dictatorship,  the  Amir 
of  Afghanistan  was  a  man  with  a  head-piece  on  his 
shoulders,  and  it  was  not  merely  due  to  love  of 
gaiety  that  he  made  a  visit  to  India.  Mr.  Naoroji 
is  claimed,  not  without  reason,  as  a  sharer  of  these 
views,  and  he  is  regarded  as  a  Moderate  Congress- 
man and  is  one  whom  Englishmen  in  high  places, 
whether  wisely  or  not,  go  out  of  their  way  to  honour. 
Few  who  know  Orientals  will  think  it  is  expedient 
to  kiss  the  rod,  and  until  India  turns  Christian,  and 
probably  after,  it  will  be  better  not  to  condone  openly 
avowed  disaffection. 

Again,  Babu  Bepin  Chandra  recommended  vast 
quasi-religious  meetings,  at  which  white  goats  should 
be  sacrificed.  White  goats  probably  means  Euro- 
peans. The  Government  would  not  prohibit  such 
assemblies,  and  the  holding  of  such  midnight  cere- 
monies at  regular  intervals  would  have  great  mean- 
ing, and  might,  like  the  chupatties,  work  wonders. 
This  reference  to  the  mysterious  circulation  of  cakes 
just  before  the  Mutiny  frightened  the  Babu,  when 
he  saw  it  published  in  his  own  paper,  Bande  Mata- 
ram,  and  the  newspaper  subsequently  more  or  less 
repudiated  its  own  report.  Babu  Bepin  has,  how- 
ever, as  a  consequence  of  other  proceedings,  made 
the  acquaintance  of  the  inside  of  a  gaol. 

Late  in  1907,  when  agitation  in  Bengal  was  sub- 
siding, came  the  visit  of  Mr.  Keir  Hardie,  M.P., 
leader  in  Parliament  of  the  Labour  party,  who, 
before  leaving  England,  had  said:  "A  lying  press 
campaign  is  being  waged  to  bias  the  people  of  this 

184 


UNREST 

country  against  the  natives,  and  make  it  difficult  for 
Government  to  do  anything  to  break  down  the  offi- 
cial caste,  under  which  we  hold  them  in  the  bond- 
age of  subjection.  I  may  be  able  to  let  a  light  in 
upon  the  dark  places  of  Indian  government.  Need- 
less to  add,  I  go  as  a  warm  supporter  of  the  claims  of 
the  people.  My  time  will  be  brief,  but  with  the  aid 
of  friends  I  hope  to  turn  it  to  good  account. "  Such 
words  bespeak,  perhaps,  an  impartial  attitude  and 
an  open  mind.  At  any  rate,  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  trav- 
elled about  Eastern  Bengal  with  Mr.  J.  Chowdhury, 
a  Bengali  barrister,  connected  with  the  Svadeshi 
agitation,  who  explained  in  the  press  that  he  was  not 
Mr.  Hardie's  secretary,  but  served  him  out  of  love 
and  admiration,  without  any  intention  of  preju- 
dicing him  against  any  sect  or  class  he  interviewed. 
Thus  he  accused  and  excused  himself,  while  Mr. 
Hardie  spoke  at  Barisal,  a  local  storm  centre,  and  is 
reported  to  have  said  he  would  do  his  best  to  make 
India  a  self-governing  colony  like  Canada,  as  what 
was  good  for  the  Canadians  must  be  good  for  the 
Indians,  a  statement  which  defies  criticism  and,  as 
Mr.  Morley  observed,  is  as  reasonable  as  to  hold 
that  because  a  fur  coat  is  good  to  wear  in  Canada  it 
is  good  to  wear  in  India. 

Other  statements  attributed  to  Mr.  Hardie,  in 
which  exceedingly  strong  language  was  used  against 
the  Government,  he  repudiated,  and  of  course  his  dis- 
claimer must  be  accepted,  but  the  Bengali  press  de- 
scribed his  advent  as  the  act  of  God,  in  order  to  aid 
in  the  demolition  of  a  gigantic  conspiracy  against  the 

185 


INDIA 

Hindoos.  The  cry  that  Russian  methods  had  been 
adopted  in  Eastern  Bengal  apparently  originated  in 
the  conviction  of  Surendra  Nath  Bannerji,  who  was 
fined  400  rupees  (£26)  for  breach  of  the  police  regu- 
lations for  the  conduct  of  processions,  the  Babu 
having  dexterously  persuaded  the  police  to  arrest 
him,  to  the  profound  annoyance  of  the  editor  of  a 
rival  Bengali  newspaper,  which  protested  that  Babu 
Bannerji  had  no  right  to  take  selfishly  all  the  glory 
to  himself.  It  appeared  that  Mr.  Hardie's  known 
views  on  Asiatic  labour  in  British  colonies  were  not 
such  as  to  commend  him  at  the  outset  to  the  Bengali 
Babus,  but  they  overlooked  this  objection  in  their 
anxiety  to  aid  him  upon  his  impartial  quest  after 
truth.  The  Labour  party,  he  said,  was  intensely 
anxious  to  see  a  much  larger  share  given  to  the 
natives  in  the  government  of  the  country.  Mr. 
Hardie  compared  Svadeshi  with  Sinn  Fein,  but  one 
of  the  Indian  weeklies,  the  Spectator,  unkindly 
reminded  the  Bengalis  that  he  had  protested  in 
Parliament  that  Indian  manufacturers  should  not 
have  the  benefit  of  long  hours  of  work  in  addition 
to  cheap  labour. 

The  Indian  papers  report  that  Mr.  Hardie  cried: 
"Bande  Maiaram,"  or  "Hail,  Kali!"  at  Barisal, 
amid  the  lusty  cheers  of  his  audience.  Nothing 
could  more  aptly  have  illustrated  the  extraordinary 
position  in  which  a  stranger  is  placed  who,  ignorant 
of  India,  puts  himself  in  the  hands  of  the  Babus. 
The  leader  of  Labour  in  England,  the  denouncer  of 
Indian  labour  in  the  Colonies,  cries:  "Hail  to  the 

186 


UNREST 

goddess  of  destruction!  in  Bengal!"  The  utmost 
sincerity,  the  most  anxious  endeavour  to  get  at  the 
truth,  the  sublimest  impartiality,  would  not  suffice 
to  save  a  man  in  such  a  situation. 

The  Amrita  Bazaar  Patrika  kept  records  of  Mr. 
Hardie's  words  and  of  his  interviews,  with  the  aid 
of  interpreters  belonging  to  the  disaffected  faction, 
with  petty  cultivators  and  shop-keepers.  Mr.  Hardie 
was  horrified,  it  was  said,  at  the  contents  of  a  native 
hut,  and  was  evidently  unaware  that  the  owners  of 
palaces  have  as  much,  or  rather  as  little,  furniture  in 
the  rooms  in  which  they  actually  live  in  the  East. 
A  low  standard  of  wants  does  not  necessarily  evi- 
dence poverty.  A  punkah  is  a  luxury,  but  it  is  a 
far  greater  luxury  not  to  need  a  punkah. 

From  representative  Mohammedans  Mr.  Hardie 
was  unable  to  learn  anything,  owing  to  his  being 
under  the  guidance  of  a  prominent  Calcutta  agi- 
tator, Mr.  J.  Chowdhury,  and,  on  his  arrival  at  Cal- 
cutta, the  editor  of  The  Englishman,  Mr.  Duchesne, 
questioned  him  upon  the  reports  of  The  English- 
man's correspondent  at  Barisal,  but  he  gave  no 
information  regarding  the  Mohammedans  he  had 
interviewed,  or  the  interpreter  who  had  communi- 
cated between  him  and  them.  He  thought,  how- 
ever, that  while  Government  interpreters  often  made 
mistakes,  his  own  interpreter  was  exempt  from  this 
failing,  and  indeed  it  is  probable  that  the  latter 
made  no  mistake  in  carrying  out  the  duty  entrusted 
to  him.  Mr.  Hardie  seems  to  have  accepted  any- 
thing the  Hindoo  agitators  told  him  of  the  truculent 

187 


INDIA 

and  immoral  character  of  Mohammedans  as  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth, 
and  he  prescribed  freedom,  such  as  is  enjoyed  by 
Australia  and  Canada,  as  the  remedy  for  all  the  ills 
to  which  Indian  flesh  is  heir. 

This  interest  in  India  on  the  part  of  Labour  mem- 
bers —  or  Labourites,  as  they  are  called  in  the 
Indian  press,  probably  following  the  analogy  of  the 
familiar  anchorite  —  is  a  new  development,  and  it  is 
not  a  little  extraordinary  to  see  an  honourable  mem- 
ber of  Parliament,  with  the  utmost  sincerity  and 
purity  of  purpose,  dancing  to  the  tune  set  by  the 
Congress  as  the  representatives  of  the  Indian  upper 
and  aristocratic  classes,  and  repeated  in  England  at 
the  expense  of  landlords,  against  whom  the  British 
Government  had  had  by  repeated  enactments  to 
protect  their  tenants. 


188 


CHAPTER   VIII 

UNREST 

IT  is  now  seven  years  since  I  urged  that  the 
newspapers  published  by  Indians  for  Indians, 
whether  written  in  English  or  in  the  vernacu- 
lar languages,  deserved  more  attention  than  they 
received;  that  they  were  the  sole  means  whereby  the 
inhabitants  of  India  learnt  what  was  going  on  in 
their  own  and  in  other  countries;  that  to  them 
exclusively  educated  Indians  owed  their  news,  and 
from  them  they  took  their  opinions.  I  testified  to 
the  ability  of  these  journals,  upon  which  it  was  one 
of  my  official  duties  for  many  years  to  report,  and 
gratefully  acknowledged  their  loyalty  during  the 
dark  days  of  the  war  in  South  Africa.  The  Bengali, 
now  so  vituperative  of  and  hostile  to  Britain  and 
British  administration,  then  quoted  SkobelefPs  state- 
ment that  "England  is  a  vampire  seeking  the  last 
drop  of  India's  blood,"  and  added,  "India  thinks 
otherwise.  Russian  rule  would  blast  our  hopes  of 
political  progress  and  advancement  and  destroy 
our  dreams  of  self-government."  The  Amrita  Bazaar 
Patrika,  now  another  enemy  in  Bengal,  then  wrote: 
"If  the  English  proposed  to  leave,  the  people  would 
entreat  them  to  remain."  The  Mirror,  however, 

189 


INDIA 

said:  "The  spirit  of  rationalism  and  criticism  evoked 
by  Occidental  influences  has  undermined  the  founda- 
tions of  Aryan  faith  and  religion." 

That  was  a  true  word,  and  the  agitator  found  out 
long  ago  that  contempt  for  the  religion  and  customs 
of  his  country  cut  him  off  from  the  masses  of  the 
people,  and  began  to  mend  his  ways,  so  that  at 
present  beef-eating,  England-visiting  Bengalis  are 
lecturing  on  the  impurities  of  sugar  and  cotton 
sizing,  as  practised  by  the  irreligious  Englishmen  to 
the  destruction  of  the  sacred  caste  of  the  Hindoo 
purchaser. 

The  Tribune  of  Lahore,  not  London,  thought  seven 
years  ago  that  the  people  of  the  West  had  outgrown 
Christianity,  wanted  something  more  ethereal,  more 
potent  than  what  was  presented  by  Jesus  to  half 
barbarians  like  the  Jews,  and  offered  a  local  prophet 
to  supply  the  want.  The  Hindu  Patriot  at  that 
time  deplored  the  manner  in  which  legislation  affect- 
ing the  social  institutions  of  the  country  had  been 
forced  upon  an  unready  and  unwilling  people,  and 
instanced  the  Civil  Marriage  and  Age  of  Consent 
acts.  That  the  Patriot  was  right  I  have  never 
doubted,  and  alone  among  those  who  wrote  on  the 
subject  I  condemned  the  latter  act  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  and  predicted  that  the  results  would  be 
disastrous.  True,  the  act  has  been  a  dead  letter, 
but  none  the  less  the  Hindoos  do  not  forget  that  at 
the  instance  of  a  Parsee  gentleman,  backed  by  philan- 
thropists and  others,  their  British  rulers  made  an 
offence  of  one  of  their  cherished  customs,  because 

190 


UNREST 

it  offended  against  their  own  ethical  ideals.  Indeed, 
I  firmly  believe  that  the  action  then  taken  is  one,  at 
least,  of  the  reasons  why  the  Indian  press  at  the 
present  day  manifests  a  far  less  satisfactory,  and  the 
Bengali  press  a  downright  seditious  and  hostile,  atti- 
tude toward  ourselves  and  our  Government  in  India. 

Not  that  the  Indian  press  as  a  whole  can  by  any 
means  be  condemned  as  seditious.  Take,  for  instance, 
recently  published  passages  from  the  Hindu  Patriot 
and  the  Hindu  Mirror. 

The  former,  the  oldest  native  paper  in  India,  wrote: 

"It  is  self -advertisers  who  are  at  the  bottom  of  the 
mischief,  and  these  people  ought  to  be  kept  out  of  all 
serious  movements,  for  then  the  chances  of  ugly 
incidents  occurring  would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum. 
It  is  easy  to  assume  the  leadership  of  men,  but  not 
so  the  task  of  rightly  leading  the  people.  .  .  .  Only 
such  men  as  have  been  found  fit  to  guide  and  con- 
trol the  masses,  and  whose  tried  ability  and  wisdom 
are  a  guarantee  that  they  will  not  lead  their  followers 
astray  and  ruin  the  cause  they  have  taken  up,  should 
be  admitted  and  recognised  as  leaders."  j 

The  latter  joined  in  condemning  the  extremists, 
and  its  attitude  may  be  gathered  from  the  following 
passage: 

"There  is  nothing  in  the  national  awakening  of 
India  to  lead  one  to  suppose  that  it  is  inconsistent 
with  the  maintenance  of  British  rule.  It  is  British 
rule  which  brought  about  this  awakening,  and  through 
it  alone  can  the  ideal  of  an  Indian  nation  be  fulfilled. 
For  over  a  century  and  a  half  England  has  been  the 

191 


INDIA 

model  for  India.  Japan  cannot  trust  England  out 
of  her  place.  .  .  .  We  want  a  practical  spirit  in 
all  our  national  work.  The  extremists  think  they 
can  conquer  India  by  obstreperous  noisy  agitation. 
Well,  they  have  not  done  so  yet.  .  .  .  Internal 
reform  and  development  are  the  two  things  essential 
to  the  real  growth  of  Indian  nationality." 

Indeed,  most  of  the  journals  in  other  than  Hindoo 
hands  are  well  disposed,  such  as  the  Parsee  papers 
of  Bombay,  the  Lahore  Observer,  and  the  Moslem 
Chronicle,  and  papers  edited  by  Hindoos  cannot  at 
all  be  comprehensively  classed  as  disaffected,  though 
the  epithet  applies  pretty  freely  in  Bengal. 

In  the  Parsee  Chronicle  the  opinion  was  expressed 
that  the  cardinal  mistake  of  the  Government  had 
been  to  remain  indifferent  to  sedition  until  the 
bitter  seed  had  borne  poisonous  fruit,  whereas  the 
application  of  the  ordinary  law  at  an  earlier  period 
would  have  met  the  requirements  of  the  case.  It 
was  pointed  out  that  in  native  states  the  vernacular 
press  is  only  allowed  very  moderate  criticism,  in 
spite  of  the  theories  of  liberty  and  autonomy  of 
which  so  much  is  heard  from  the  agitators  in  British 
India.  Even  in  Baroda,  it  was  suggested,  the  win- 
dows were,  with  the  help  of  Mr.  Dutt,  dressed  for 
advanced  Indian  and  European  admiration.  Par- 
sees  were  genuinely  alarmed  for  trade  lest  the 
flow  of  British  capital  to  India  should  be  checked, 
and  their  organ  pointed  out  that  in  the  course  of 
national  evolution  social  and  industrial  progress  is 
the  prelude  to  political  rights.  The  so-called  drain, 

192 


o 


UNREST 

said  the  Chronicle,  was  entirely  due  to  the  fact 
that  rich  Indians  would  not  use  their  own  wealth  in 
productive  industries.  The  English  Radical  news- 
papers, which  published  effusions  from  youths  at 
college,  were  severely  criticised  as  having  contrib- 
uted to  the  creed  that  the  Liberal  Government 
would  yield  to  any  demand,  however  unreasonable, 
for  anything  called,  however  erroneously,  popular 
rights.  ^vj 

It  would  be  difficult  to  state  the  case  better,  but 
the  Parsee  Chronicle  is  not  concerned  to  conciliate 
those  who  regard  a  fur  coat  as  equally  suitable  for 
hot  and  cold  climates  and  the  liberty  of  the  press 
to  libel  the  Government  as  one  of  the  essential 
virtues  and  necessary  features  of  British  rule  in  all 
parts  of  the  globe. 

The  native  newspapers  in  Bombay  are  to  a  very 
small  extent  Mohammedan,  but  chiefly  Mahratti 
and  Gujerati;  the  former,  which  is  entirely  under 
Brahmin  management,  being  violently  anti-British 
and  the  latter  fairly  moderate  in  tone  and  charac- 
ter. The  Brahmins  who  control  the  press  are  here, 
as  elsewhere,  lawyers,  landlords,  writers,  money- 
lenders, priests,  clerks,  and  Government  servants, 
and  the  Mahrattas  are  landlords,  cultivators,  trad- 
ers, and  followers  of  other  professions  and  callings. 
The  Brahmins,  who  live  in  Poona  and  exercise 
such  journalistic  influence,  are  often  described  as 
Mahratta  Brahmins,  but  they  are  of  course  not 
Mahrattas,  and  do  not  represent  the  Mahratta  race, 
or  any  race.  They  represent  their  own  caste,  the 

193 


INDIA 

most  exclusive  and  aristocratic  in  the  world,  the 
pretensions  of  which  they  have  persuaded  socialists 
and  democrats  in  England  to  champion,  a  proof 
that  the  Brahmin's  right  hand  has  not  lost  its 
cunning. 

The  papers  they  inspire  breathe  fire  and  slaughter 
against  ourselves.  The  editor  of  the  Vehari,  for 
instance,  taking  a  poem  by  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt  as 
his  text,  said  that  India  had  fallen  into  slavery, 
and  that  the  ultimate  means  of  acquiring  indepen- 
dence was  by  the  sword,  which  must  eventually  be 
unsheathed.  The  High  Court  of  Bombay  sentenced 
him  to  two  years'  imprisonment,  and  he  had  pre- 
viously described  the  empire  of  the  Feringhees 
(Europeans  in  India)  as  "Hell  on  Earth,"  and  "the 
English  as  surpassing  Nero,  Nadir  Shah,  Tamerlane, 
and  even  Satan  in  cruelty.  The  whole  world  hated 
the  English,  and  the  mercifulness  of  God  was  being 
doubted  because  success  was  being  granted  to  them." 
For  these  mild  expressions  of  party  feeling  he  had 
been  bound  over  to  be  of  good  behaviour,  but  this 
was  asking  too  much  of  a  Brahmin  in  command  of 
a  Mahratti  newspaper,  and  he  soon  again  offended. 

The  Deccan  Herald  printed  a  manifesto  calling  on 
all  honest  Bengalis  to  rise  and  throw  the  Feringhees 
into  the  sea,  killing  50,000  of  them,  and  the  pro- 
prietor and  editor  of  the  Punjaubi  newspaper  of 
Lahore  were  deservedly  sent  to  gaol  for  the  publica- 
tion of  an  article  in  which  it  was  practically  stated 
that  all  Englishwomen  who  frequented  dances  came 
thither  for  purposes  of  prostitution. 

194 


UNREST 

In  the  spring  of  1907  the  Punjaubi  accused  a 
European  officer  of  wantonly  shooting  a  policeman 
for  some  trifling  offence.  There  was  no  shadow  of 
evidence  to  support  the  story,  and  the  two  journal- 
ists concerned  were  convicted,  the  convictions  being 
confirmed,  though  the  sentences  were  reduced,  in 
two  successive  Courts  of  Appeal.  The  men  were 
treated  as  martyrs;  an  explosion  of  anti-British  feel- 
ing took  place  as  they  were  removed  to  prison,  and 
the  usual  complaints  were  made  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  subject 
was  being  endangered  in  India. 

But  while  the  Bengali  Babus  were  sowing  sedition 
amongst  the  Hindoos  of  the  Punjaub,  and  seditious 
editors  found  support  in  the  British  Parliament, 
Mohammedans  in  Ludhiana  were  petitioning  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  for  Europeans  to  replace  the 
Hindoo  personnel  of  the  administration,  and  at  one 
of  the  towns  they  erected  a  triumphal  arch  for  His 
Honour,  on  which  was  inscribed:  "For  God's  sake 
save  us  from  the  rule  of  our  fellow-countrymen." 

The  editor  of  the  Hind  Swarajya  of  Bombay  was 
bound  over  to  be  of  good  behaviour,  over-lenient 
treatment,  surely,  for  publishing  an  article  headed, 
"Do  that  which  has  to  be  done."  In  this  precious 
production  it  was  stated  that  the  English  led  the 
Indians  along  the  path  of  sin,  and  took  away  their 
arms  in  order  artificially  to  keep  up  British  rule. 
By  their  teaching,  adultery  had  begun  to  spread  in 
Indian  homes,  and  women,  becoming  independent 
and  pressing  men  down,  had  begun  to  be  led  along 

195 


INDIA 

the  wrong  path.     The   Indians   should   engage   in 
battle  against  the  enemy. 

But  though  a  Bombay  paper  is  not  by  any  means 
incapable  of  disaffection,  the  Bengali  press  leads  the 
riot  of  disloyalty  and  no  one  more  richly  deserved 
the  punishment  he  received  than  Bepin  Chandra 
Pal,  who  last  autumn  got  six  months'  imprisonment 
—  a  sentence  which  the  High  Court  of  Bengal  con- 
sidered upon  appeal  not  too  severe,  in  view  of  the 
deliberate  attempts  this  Babu  made  to  frustrate  the 
administration  of  justice.  He  had  refused  to  be 
sworn  and  to  answer  questions  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  conductors  of  Bande  Mataram,  and  ostentatiously 
demanded  the  martyr's  crown  at  open-air  meetings 
of  students.  He  announced  that  he  had  ceased  to 
edit,  and  though  he  was  believed  to  be  still  closely 
connected  with  the  conduct  of  the  paper,  this  was  so 
managed  that  responsibility  could  not  be  brought 
home.  A  barrister,  Mr.  A.  N.  Bannerji,  who  subse- 
quently apologised  and  was  released,  was  also  arrested 
for  making  seditious  speeches,  and  a  youth  who  had 
been  birched  for  participation  in  a  riot  was  presented 
with  a  gold  medal  by  Mr.  S.  N.  Bannerji,  whose 
relations  with  the  Bengali  were  similar  to  those  of 
Babu  Bepin  Chandra  with  Bande  Mataram. 

Bannerji  had  been  a  member  of  the  Bengal  Civil 
Service,  which  he  left  in  1874,  in  circumstances  into 
which  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  enter,  at  a  time 
when  Lord  Northbrook  was  Viceroy,  Sir  George 
Campbell,  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal,  and  Lord 
Hobhouse,  legal  member  of  the  Council. 

196 


UNREST 

About  the  time  the  Indian  Budget  was  discussed 
in  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  session  of  1907  the 
Government  of  India  warned  the  Bande  Mataram 
newspaper  that  it  would  be  prosecuted  for  sedition 
unless  it  mended  its  ways.  Babu  Bepin  Chandra 
Pal  was  believed  to  be  the  writer  or  inspirer,  and  he 
was,  at  any  rate,  the  editor,  of  articles  designed  to 
create  prejudice  and  dislike  against  the  English  Gov- 
ernment and  the  English  people;  and  assailing  Mr. 
Morley's  declaration  that  British  rule  will  continue, 
ought  to  continue,  and  must  continue,  with  bitter 
criticism  as  being  fatal  to  the  great  issue  of  Indian 
self-government,  though  elsewhere  the  hand  of  God 
is  traced  in  Mr.  Morley's  blindness  and  the  text  is 
then  Quern  Deus  vult  perdere.  The  reception  of  that 
speech  in  the  House  of  Commons,  said  the  Bande 
Mataram,  saved  the  Indian  nationalists  the  trouble 
of  further  argument,  and  proved  the  delusiveness 
of  the  prevalent  faith  in  the  ultimate  sense  of  jus- 
tice of  the  British  people.  Babu  Chandra  Pal  urged 
Mohammedans  and  Hindoos  to  join  in  finding  a 
leader  and  suggested  the  Amir  of  Afghanistan.  He 
said  India  was  destined  to  be  a  republic  with  an 
Upper  Chamber  of  feudatory  chiefs  and  a  Lower 
Chamber  of  the  common  people;  than  which  no 
greater  nonsense,  even  from  the  Congress  point  of 
view,  could  well  have  been  conceived. 

The  Yugantar  of  Calcutta  cried:  "Revolution  is 
the  only  salvation  for  an  enslaved  society.  With  a 
firm  resolve  you  can  bring  English  rule  to  an  end  in 
a  single  day,  dedicate  your  lives  as  an  offering  at  the 

197 


INDIA 

temple  of  Liberty,  without  bloodshed  the  conquest 
of  the  goddess  (the  mother  of  Bande  Mataram)  will 
not  be  accomplished,  let  the  heads  of  their  intruders 
be  given  as  an  offering,  let  70,000,000  hands  take  up 
the  sword,  beggars  and  fakirs  (religious  mendicants) 
have  distributed  pamphlets  among  the  native  army 
in  Rawal  Pindi,  the  cup  of  the  English  is  full."  At 
the  same  time  a  personal  canvass  of  the  troops  was 
attempted,  and  the  prevalence  of  the  plague  in  the 
Punjaub  was  a  valuable  makeweight;  indeed,  it  was 
actually  alleged  that  the  British  introduced  this 
scourge,  and  the  tone  in  which  questions  on  this 
point  were  put  in  the  House  of  Commons  almost 
suggests  that  there  are  in  England  those  who  be- 
lieve this  extravagance.  It  was  only  an  additional 
charge  that  the  Government  was  also  accused  by 
secret  slanders  of  poisoning  the  wells. 

In  the  pamphlet  supplied  to  the  troops,  Sikhs, 
Punjaubis,  Mohammedans,  and  Rajputs  are  asked 
why  they  fight  for  the  English,  and  why  they  accept 
lower  wages  than  the  British  soldier,  when  the 
negroes  in  the  American  army  are  paid  at  the  same 
rate  as  their  white  comrades.  The  writer  also  states 
that  the  Russians  in  Central  Asia  treat  their  Mo- 
hammedan subjects  as  equals,  and  sepoys  are  adjured 
to  understand  that  they  are  eating  their  own  salt, 
not  the  salt  of  the  English.  The  leaflet  was  pub- 
lished in  a  journal  called  India.,  and  purported  to  be 
a  letter  from  a  frontier  soldier  in  America  to  a  native 
soldier  in  India.  It  was  arranged  that  100,000  copies 
should  be  printed  for  private  and  free  distribution  to 

198 


UNREST 

the  troops,  in  languages  which  included  that  of  the 
Ghurkha  regiments,  and  the  organisation  of  the 
Arya  Sanaa j,  of  which  Lajpat  Rai  is  alleged  to  be 
the  leader,  was  believed  to  be  actively  engaged  in 
this  transaction.  At  any  rate  there  is  doubt  that 
bar  libraries  have  been  particularly  active  in  the 
propagation  of  seditious  sheets,  and  there  is  nothing 
surprising  in  this  in  view  of  the  fact  that  lawyers  are 
at  the  bottom  of  the  agitation  and  unrest  and  are 
the  most  influential  element  of  the  Babu  class. 

While  seditious  utterances  in  the  Bengal  press 
were  unfortunately  by  no  means  without  precedent, 
a  new  and  more  serious  aspect  of  the  unrest  was  the 
appearance  of  the  like  discourses  in  the  newspapers 
of  the  Punjaub. 

Were  it  not  that  the  press  of  that  province  is 
under  the  control  of  Bengalis,  it  would  be  extraor- 
dinary that  the  latter  should  exercise  so  much 
influence  over  races  who  regard  them  with  ill-con- 
cealed dislike  and  contempt.  The  leaders  of  the 
Bengali  clique  had  set  before  them  the  necessity 
for  constituting  themselves  leaders  in  the  Punjaub, 
and  the  Arya  Samaj  and  the  native  press  were  the 
weapons  to  hand.  The  Arya  Samaj  is  at  present 
chiefly  a  political  society,  the  ethics  of  which  have 
been  widely  adopted  in  the  educational  establish- 
ments of  the  Punjaub.  It  aims  at  the  amalgama- 
tion of  reformed  Hindooism  with  the  new  forces 
developed  by  the  spread  of  education.  No  law  is 
binding  in  their  eyes  unless  its  source  be  the  Vedas. 
They  have  the  legal  element  wholly  on  their  side, 

199 


INDIA 

and  it  is  this  class,  here  as  elsewhere  in  India,  which 
has  provided  the  leaders  of  the  agitation  and  has 
established  vernacular  journals  to  aid  its  propa- 
ganda. The  forbearance  of  the  Government  was 
mistaken  for  weakness,  and  the  students  as  usual 
were  brought  up  to  do  the  shouting  and  to  persuade 
the  peasants  that  the  Government  was  not  treating 
them  fairly  in  the  matter  of  water  rates  and  assess- 
ments. The  deportation  of  Lajpat  Rai  and  Ajit 
Singh  scotched  the  agitation,  but  the  Arya  Sanaa j 
is  still  there. 

The  arrest  and  deportation  of  Lajpat  Rai  and 
Ajit  Singh  put  an  end  to  open  agitation  and  plainly 
showed  that  the  political  propaganda  of  the  Arya 
Samaj  inspired  the  whole  movement,  the  Arya  Samaj 
being  itself  a  society  which  had  its  origin  in  Bengal, 
from  which  province  agents  had  been  despatched  to 
the  Punjaub  in  order  to  sow  sedition  and  foster  ill- 
feeling  against  the  Government.  The  object  there, 
as  in  Bengal  and  Poona,  and  wherever  the  Congress 
agents  are  active,  was  to  obtain  control  of  the  admin- 
istration for  the  English  educated  classes,  to  secure 
an  India  preserved  from  the  attacks  of  other  nations 
by  the  British  army,  but  from  which  the  British 
themselves  should  be  excluded.  The  warlike  char- 
acter of  the  people  of  the  Punjaub,  our  partial 
dependence  upon  it  for  the  raw  material  of  our 
best  soldiers,  the  chance  of  exciting  disaffection  in 
the  army  where  it  would  be  most  dangerous  —  these 
were  considerations  present  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  selected  the  Punjaub  as  the  scene  of  active 

200 


UNREST 

agitation.  They  reckoned  without  the  firmness  and 
absence  of  panic  which  distinguished  the  treatment 
of  the  case  at  home  and  in  India,  but  the  germs  of 
disaffection  proved  disappointingly  easy  to  plant, 
and  the  situation  needs,  and  at  the  hands  of  Sir 
Denzil  Ibbetson's  successor  will  receive,  the  utmost 
care  and  attention. 

The  Regulation  III  of  1818,  under  which  the  agi- 
tators were  deported,  provides  that  reasons  of  state, 
embracing  the  security  of  the  British  dominions 
from  foreign  hostility  and  internal  commotion,  occa- 
sionally render  it  necessary  to  place  individuals  under 
personal  restraint,  and  in  1897  the  Natu  brothers 
were  arrested  under  these  powers  at  Poona,  besides 
which  they  have  been  used  in  order  to  incarcerate 
certain  dangerous  Moplah  fanatics  in  Malabar.  In 
native  states  such  powers  are,  as  has  been  already 
said,  freely  exercised,  and  last  year  the  Nizam  of 
Hyderabad  expelled  the  head  of  one  of  the  great 
families  of  the  state,  Nawab  Syed  Jung  Syed-ud- 
Doula,  for  writing  to  him  or  of  him  in  an  imperti- 
nent and  offensive  manner,  to  the  prejudice  of  good 
government  and  proper  respect  for  the  ruler  of  the 
state. 

It  is  urged  by  the  Congress  critics  that  these 
powers  were  given  before  legislative  councils  were 
created,  but  that  does  not  in  any  way  prove  that 
they  are  not  as  necessary  at  the  present  day  as  they 
were  when  no  one  would  have  thought  of  question- 
ing the  right  of  the  state  to  act  in  this  manner. 

In  November  Lajpat  Rai  and  Ajit  Singh  were 

201 


INDIA 

released,  after  being  detained  for  about  six  months, 
whereupon  the  Bengali  expressed  a  fear  lest  the 
policy  of  conciliation  should  do  harm  to  the  new 
spirit  of  national  consciousness,  the  comments  of 
other  journals  of  the  like  character  being  less  ingen- 
uously disaffected.  Efforts  were  also  freely  made  to 
represent  the  order  for  release  as  the  personal  act  of 
the  King-Emperor,  who  desired  to  right  the  wrong 
done  by  his  agents.  The  action  of  Government  met 
with  general  approval  as  it  was  taken  at  a  time  when 
the  extremists  had  fallen  into  disrepute  and  the  agi- 
tation was  subsiding,  and  only  those  from  whose  sails 
a  certain  amount  of  wind  was  taken  adversely  crit- 
icised the  course  taken  by  the  administration. 

Other  than  domestic  causes  contributed  to  the 
success  of  the  agents  of  the  Bengali  agitators  in  the 
Punjaub,  among  the  warlike  races  of  which  province 
the  Russo-Japanese  War  has  no  doubt  quickened 
the  ever-present  martial  spirit.  The  defeat  of  Rus- 
sia has  inspired  the  Babu  classes  with  the  idea  of  a 
United  India,  wherewith  to  replace  the  previously 
existing  Congress  programme,  while  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Duma  in  Russia  and  of  a  Parliament 
in  Persia  have  also  somewhat  stimulated  vague 
aspirations  of  an  aristocratic  oligarchy  for  indepen- 
dence. Meanwhile  the  Bengali  anti-English  policy, 
which  was  transplanted  to  the  Punjaub  not  two 
years  since,  first  fastened  on  the  Land  Alienation 
Act,  which  traders  dislike  but  agriculturists  rather 
favour,  and  next  attacked  the  Punjaub  Colonisation 
Bill.  In  the  last  twenty  years  rainless  tracts  in  the 

202 


UNREST 

desert  have  been  irrigated  and  populated  by  means 
of  magnificent  canals,  upon  the  banks  of  which 
colonies  have  been  planted,  which  extend  to  over 
3,000,000  acres  of  irrigated  land,  and  have  a  popula- 
tion of  upwards  of  2,000,000.  These  were  controlled 
by  colonisation  officers,  who  endeavoured  to  perform 
practically  all  the  functions  of  Government  in  their 
own  persons,  till  this  bill  was  introduced  to  legalise 
existing  conditions  and  the  powers  they  exercised. 
Unfortunately,  however,  some  of  its  provisions  gave 
colour  to  the  charge  that  the  conditions  of  land 
tenure  were  being  somewhat  altered.  The  most 
was  made  of  this,  but  the  bill  was  altered  and  passed 
by  the  Punjaub  Government,  which  was  falsely 
accused,  by  the  newspapers  edited  by  the  Bengali 
Babus  or  their  agents,  of  having  broken  faith  with 
the  occupiers  of  the  colony  lands.  Though  the 
Viceroy  subsequently  disallowed  the  bill,  the  mis- 
chief had  been  done.  In  like  manner  the  riots 
which  occurred  at  Rawal  Pindi  were  due  to  discon- 
tent promoted  against  the  new  land  settlement.  As 
was  stated  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  the  land  sys- 
tem, settlement  in  the  Punjaub  is  effected  for  twenty 
years,  at  the  expiration  of  which  period  the  assess- 
ment is  generally  raised,  because  prices  usually  rise 
and  the  revenues  of  villages  automatically  increase 
near  great  towns  like  Rawal  Pindi.  Most  of  the 
land  belongs,  however,  not  to  agriculturists,  but  to 
traders  and  Babus,  who  at  once  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity of  persuading  the  peasants,  who  hitherto 
had  had  profound  faith  in  the  district  officer,  that 

203 


INDIA 

rents  were  to  be  doubled  all  round.  As  a  fact  the 
increased  assessment  in  the  Rawal  Pindi  district 
was  due  to  the  greater  area  under  cultivation,  not 
to  excessive  enhancements.  The  revision  of  the 
water  rates  upon  the  Baridoab  Canal,  which  was 
also  attacked,  was  carried  out  in  the  interests  of  the 
general  taxpayer,  who  was  getting  insufficient  return 
from  irrigation  works  constructed  out  of  taxes  col- 
lected from  his  pocket,  and  similar  revisions  had 
been  made  in  respect  of  other  Punjaub  canals,  with- 
out any  objection,  before  the  Bengali  agitators  came 
upon  the  scene. 

Nevertheless  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  sedi- 
tious propaganda  of  the  Bengal  agitators  has  worked 
great  mischief  amongst  the  martial  races  of  the 
Punjaub,  where  the  Government  can  only  last  as 
long  as  the  people  believe  it  to  be  strong,  and  the 
same  may  be  said  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  every 
part  of  India. 

No  doubt  the  revenue  system  of  the  province  is 
somewhat  inelastic,  and  the  Punjaub  Alienation  Act, 
intended  to  relieve  the  peasants  from  the  yoke  of 
usurers,  has  not  been  much  welcomed  by  the  Sikhs. 
On  the  other  hand,  Punjaub  Canal  Colonies  have 
been  a  marvellous  success,  and  it  is  the  irony  of  fate 
that  the  enemy  should  have  found  in  them  an  occa- 
sion to  blaspheme.  j 

In  Madras  the  agitators  met  with  scant  encourage- 
ment, though  the  visit  of  Bepin  Chandra  Pal  was 
followed  by  insubordination  in  the  Rajamundry  Col- 
lege, which,  however,  speedily  subsided,  without  being 

204 


UNREST 

elsewhere  imitated,  when  the  Government  supported 
the  principal  in  the  disciplinary  measures  he  thought 
it  advisable  to  take. 

It  is  without  surprise,  however,  I  see  that  Sir  H. 
Cotton  has  stated  "that  Madras  is  disturbed  and 
unsettled  in  sympathy  with  the  feelings  of  other 
parts  of  India."  The  fact,  of  course,  is  that  this 
sober  and  well-doing  province  has  exhibited  no  par- 
ticle of  such  sympathy,  but  has  been  a  sad  disap- 
pointment to  Babu  Bepin  Chandra  Pal  and  his 
friends.  An  article  recently  published  in  a  Bengali 
paper  sadly  acknowleged  the  fact,  and  ended  by 
exclaiming,  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger,  "Alas! 
for  Madras."  Neither  has  the  southern  province, 
or  satrapy,  as  Sir  Mountstuart  Grant  Duff  used  to 
call  it,  contributed  to  any  great  extent  to  the  war 
chest  of  the  Congress,  though  among  the  local  law- 
yers are  some  who  speak  and  write  on  its  behalf  and, 
being  as  rich  and  capable  as  any  men  in  India,  could 
give  pecuniary  assistance  if  they  chose. 

The  press,  then,  of  Bengal  and  Poona,  and  in  a 
less  degree  of  the  Punjaub,  has  contributed  in  no 
small  degree  to  the  present  situation,  and  the  par- 
tition of  Bengal  was  invaluable  as  a  magnet  to  which 
all  the  disaffected  were  drawn,  though  the  charge 
brought  against  the  Government  of  India  of  having 
rushed  the  matter  through  without  inquiry,  and 
without  any  regard  to  the  feelings  of  those  con- 
cerned, is  wholly  untenable. 

The  question  was  thoroughly  and  publicly  dis- 
cussed, but  no  division  would  have  satisfied  the 

205 


INDIA 

Congress  party,  who  see  in  a  divided  Bengal  a 
weakening  of  the  influence  which  that  overgrown 
province  was  in  a  position  to  exercise.  The  Moham- 
medans, two-thirds  of  the  population,  are  notoriously 
in  favour  of  the  change,  and  the  anti-partition  move- 
ment is,  in  point  of  fact,  nothing  but  an  anti-British 
agitation.  It  is  quite  untrue  that  the  majority  of 
the  Bengal  Civil  Service  was  opposed  to  the  measure, 
and  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  Sir  Andrew  Fraser, 
strongly  supported  it,  saying  that  amongst  the  senior 
offices  of  the  province,  with  the  exception  of  one, 
there  was  complete  unanimity  in  accepting  the  pro- 
posal. The  suggestion  that  Behar  and  Chota  Nag- 
pur  should  have  been,  and  w7anted  to  be,  made  into 
a  separate  province,  is  negatived  by  their  memorial 
protesting  against  separation,  and  the  obvious  line 
to  follow  was  that  previously  taken  when  the  Assam 
Chief  Commissionership  was  formed  out  of  Eastern 
Bengal  in  1874  by  making  a  separate  administra- 
tion of  Assam  and  certain  Bengali  districts.  It  fol- 
lowed, almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  any  further 
subdivision  of  the  overgrown  and  unwieldy  Govern- 
ment would  be  accomplished  by  the  addition  of  more 
Bengali  districts  to  the  little  province  previously 
carved  out  of  the  big  Presidency.  The  Bengalis  are 
not,  in  the  English  sense  of  the  word,  a  nation,  and 
such  solidity  or  nationality  as  they  now  possess  is 
mainly  the  result  of  British  education  and  British 
government.  That  nationality,  however,  such  as  it 
is,  is  in  no  sense  impaired  by  the  levelling  up  of 
Assam  with  the  districts  previously  transferred  in 

206 


UNREST 

1874,  and  with  the  districts  since  transferred  in  1905, 
into  a  Lieutenant-Governorship;  that  is  to  say,  an 
administration  of  exactly  the  same  grade  and  char- 
acter as  that  of  the  Lieutenant-Governorship,  which 
once  included  the  whole  area.  The  two  divisions  of 
Bengal  are  administered  by  the  same  civil  service 
and  subject  to  the  same  rules,  laws,  and  regulations, 
and  Eastern  Bengal  is  in  no  way  altered  except  in  so 
far  as  it  receives  the  undivided  instead  of  the  divided 
attention  of  a  Lieutenant-Governor.  The  scheme, 
be  it  good  or  bad,  was  not,  as  is  often  asserted,  the 
invention  of  Lord  Curzon,  nor  is  it  true  that  the 
creation  of  a  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  Behar  and 
Chota  Nagpur  would  have  been  acceptable  to  those 
concerned.  On  the  contrary,  the  press  of  Behar 
protested  against  any  such  proposal,  and  the  press 
of  Behar  is  as  good  as  the  press  of  Bengal,  and 
better  in  that  it  is  loyal  and  moderate  in  tone.  The 
people  of  Behar  no  more  favour  this  proposal  than 
the  people  of  Eastern  Bengal  object  to  partition. 
Indeed,  the  Amrita  Bazaar  Patrika  ungratefully  threw 
overboard  the  Congress  representative,  Sir  H.  Cot- 
ton, who  advocated  the  creation  of  a  Behar  province 
in  Parliament,  saying,  "We  trust  he  and  his  friends 
made  it  quite  clear  the  movement  was  initiated  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  the  leaders  in  Bengal.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  there  is  a  vast  number  of  people  in 
Bengal  and  Behar  who  are  very  much  opposed  to 
separation  from  Bengal." 

No  individual  can  speak  to  the  opinions  of  many 
millions  of  illiterate  peasants,  but  it  is  possible  for 

207 


INDIA 

them  by  mass  meetings  to  give  expression  to  some 
extent  to  their  opinions,  and  the  Mohammedans, 
two-thirds  of  the  population,  have  expressed  their 
strong  approval  of  the  creation  of  the  new  prov- 
ince. In  like  manner  the  Hindoo  tenants  of  the 
landlords  of  Eastern  Bengal  have  met  and  protested, 
not  against  partition,  but  against  the  agitation 
against  partition,  and  against  the  boycott,  which 
was  enforced  for  a  time,  to  the  extreme  incon- 
venience of  the  population,  and  to  the  prejudice  of 
British  trade  and  British  goods. 

Whether  or  not  it  was  wise  to  subdivide  Bengal 
is  an  open  question,  and  had  the  results  been  fore- 
seen the  measure  probably  would  never  have  been 
carried  through.  However  that  may  be,  the  objec- 
tions raised  have  been  purely  factious  and  artifi- 
cial. But  the  English-educated  and  English-hating 
Babus  were  far  too  shrewd  not  to  see  how  this 
change  affected  the  unduly  privileged  position  they 
had  gained  as  a  result  of  excessive  administrative 
concentration  at  Calcutta.  They  hoped  to  bring 
pressure  to  bear  on  the  authorities  by  injuring  the 
commerce  of  the  capital  by  their  Svadeshi  and  boy- 
cott policy,  and  at  the  same  time,  by  the  same  meas- 
ures, to  coerce  the  Mohammedans  into  opposing 
partition,  or  to  force  the  Government  into  opposi- 
tion to  the  Mohammedans  by  involving  them  in 
riots  and  disturbances  which  they  themselves,  not 
without  success,  set  to  work  to  provoke. 

It  will  be  asked,  then,  Is  there  nothing  in  the 
objection  raised  to  the  so-called  partition?  There  is. 

208 


UNREST 

The  landlords  of  Bengal  are  the  successors  in  title 
of  those  farmers  of  the  revenue  whom  Lord  Corn- 
wallis  created  landlords  after  the  English  pattern. 
They  are  high-caste  Hindoos,  and  their  tenants  are 
either  Mohammedans  or  high-caste  Hindoos,  and  the 
British  Government  has  been  occupied  ever  since 
Lord  Cornwallis's  time  in  protecting  these  tenants 
against  these  British-created  landlords,  who  occupy 
in  some  respects  much  the  same  position  as  land- 
lords do  in  Ireland.  Indeed,  the  tenants  have  num- 
bered among  their  most  able  champions  Sir  Antony 
MacDonnell,  no  oppressor  of  subject  peoples.  To 
this  body  of  landlords  it  is  no  doubt  a  blow  that  they 
should  cease  to  have  as  their  local  capital  Calcutta, 
which  is  also  the  capital  of  India,  and  the  seat  during 
the  cold  weather  of  the  Viceroy,  and  of  the  great 
officers  of  state.  Journalists,  students,  and  lawyers 
also,  for  obvious  reasons,  bitterly  resent  losing  Cal- 
cutta, and  it  is  true  that  the  solidarity  of  these  classes, 
as  distinguished  from  the  masses,  is  somewhat 
impaired.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Mohammedans, 
the  Hindoo  tenants,  and  the  native  Christians  have 
protested  at  mass  meetings  against  the  reconsidera- 
tion of  an  act  of  state  which  has  endowed  them 
with  a  Lieutenant-Governor  of  their  own  and  has 
created  their  districts,  which  with  Assam  have  a 
population  of  upwards  of  30,000,000,  into  a  separate 
Lieutenant-Governorship.  The  landlord  class,  of 
whom  the  Bengali  Babus  are  the  typical  representa- 
tives, have  money.  They  can  and  do  agitate.  They 
have  a  violent  and  vituperative  press  at  their  dis- 

209 


INDIA 

posal,  a  press  which  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the 
object  of  the  agitators  is  to  turn  the  English  out  of 
India.  Those  who  adopt  this  attitude  ask  us  to 
believe  that  the  late  Viceroy  acted  for  the  purpose 
of  destroying  the  political  solidarity  of  the  Bengalis 
—  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  rest  of  India 
takes  no  kind  of  interest  in  the  question  and,  indeed, 
is  not  favourable  to  Bengali  pretensions  —  they  ask 
us  to  believe  that  a  further  extension  of  administra- 
tive changes,  effected  without  comment  in  1874,  and 
approved  by  three  Secretaries  of  State,  with  their 
Councils  of  experienced  officers,  and  approved  by 
two  Governments  of  India,  consisting  of  many  offi- 
cers representing  all  parts  of  that  Empire,  a  meas- 
ure expressly  and  enthusiastically  approved  by  the 
masses  immediately  affected,  is  an  insult  to  Bengal, 
a  blunder,  and  an  odious  and  oppressive  act.  The 
peculiar  irony  of  the  situation  is  that  the  Bengali 
press,  and  a  few  travelled  and  English-educated 
Bengalis,  who  no  longer  represent  the  feelings  of 
the  Indian  people,  succeed  in  persuading  the  elec- 
torate in  England  and  their  representatives  in  a 
democratic  Parliament  to  take  the  side  of  the  classes 
against  the  masses,  of  the  high  castes  against  the 
low  castes,  of  a  small  denationalised  group  against 
the  uneducated  and  unsympathising  multitudes.  I 
would  fain  enlarge  on  this  subject  in  the  interests 
of  inarticulate  masses,  who  are  grievously  misrep- 
resented by  men  who  may  be,  and  often  but  not 
always  are,  disinterested  and  impartial,  who  may  be, 
and  generally  are,  able  and  eloquent,  but  who,  if 

210 


UNREST 

they  were  angels  from  above,  could  not  fairly  rep- 
resent people  whose  manners,  customs,  feelings, 
religions,  social  prejudices,  and  prepossessions  they 
have  abandoned. 

The  Indian  masses  care  as  little  for  these  orators 
and  agitators  as  they  do  for  representative  govern- 
ment, of  which  they  have  never  heard,  but  for  which, 
by  monumental  misrepresentations  on  the  part  of 
the  Congress,  they  are  said  to  be  raising  vain  cries 
to  unanswering  Heaven. 

Again  it  is  untrue,  though  often  asserted,  that  the 
judges  of  the  High  Court  opposed  the  measure; 
indeed  the  change  in  no  way  affected  them,  for  they 
continue  to  have  jurisdiction  over  Eastern  Bengal. 
The  Chamber  of  Commerce,  too,  indignantly  pro- 
tested by  telegraph  against  the  statement  of  Mr. 
O'Donnell  to  the  effect  that  they  were  opposed  to 
partition;  nor  was  the  measure  even  nominally  that 
of  Lord  Curzon,  for  it  was  actually  settled  while 
he  was  in  England  in  1904. 

That  it  will,  however,  in  the  end  increase  the 
expense  of  administration  I  believe,  for  in  time  the 
new  province  will  want  a  Chief  Court,  or  High  Court 
of  its  own  and  the  new  constitution  actually  has  led, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  to  the  entertainment  of  a 
larger  staff  of  civil  officers.  The  management  of 
affairs  will  no  doubt  be  more  efficient  than  before, 
but  whether  India  wants  administration  more  effi- 
cient than  Eastern  Bengal  previously  had,  I  doubt. 
It  is  our  fault,  as  I  think,  that  we  are  forever  pur- 
suing progress  after  our  own  pattern,  without  duly 


INDIA 

considering  whether  those  we  seek  to  benefit  want 
it,  or  indeed  regard  it  as  progress  in  a  direction  in 
which  they  wish  to  proceed. 

If,  however,  British  administration  of  the  standard 
type  be  good  for  India,  and  it  is,  though  something 
less  scientific  would  be  more  suitable,  then  the  more 
efficient  that  administration  is  the  better,  and  there- 
fore the  so-called  partition  of  Bengal  was  a  desirable 
measure.  Many,  however,  will  think,  as  I  do,  that 
when  the  people  are  contented,  and  ask  for  no  more 
management,  it  is  well  as  a  general  rule  to  let  them 
alone. 

But  if  proof  of  sedition,  disloyalty,  and  disaffec- 
tion has  unfortunately  been  forthcoming  in  the 
press  of  Bengal,  the  Punjaub,  and  Poona,  gratify- 
ing expressions  of  loyalty  have  been  by  no  means 
wanting. 

The  nobility  and  gentry,  to  use  their  own  phrase, 
of  Bengal  deprecated  the  wild  and  mischievous  anti- 
British  agitation,  and  the  Talukdars  of  Oudh  took 
occasion  to  issue  a  similar  loyal  manifesto.  Those 
who  signed  the  latter  pronouncement  rejoiced  that 
they  were  free  from  the  evils  of  a  press  which 
seemed  to  stir  up  race  against  race,  class  against 
class,  and  creed  against  creed.  They  deplored  the 
existence  of  agitation  which  sought  to  embitter 
the  people  against  their  rulers,  held  that  the  inter- 
ests of  all  men  of  experience  and  moderate  views 
were  identical  with  the  interests  of  a  Government 
which  earnestly  sought  the  welfare  of  its  subjects, 
and  realised  that  improvements  to  be  effectual  must 


UNREST 

be  of  natural  growth,  and  that  all  classes  must 
participate  in  them. 

Maharaj  Kumar  Sir  Prodyot  Tagore  sent  Mr. 
Keir  Hardie  a  copy  of  an  appeal  to  the  loyalty  of 
noblemen  and  zemindars  of  Bengal  and,  referring  to 
Mr.  Hardie's  statement  that  there  was  only  one 
people  in  India,  pointed  out  to  him  that  "India  is 
a  great  conservative  land,  and  was  even  more  so 
under  Eastern  monarchs,  with  a  mass  of  different 
races  with  different  religions,  opposing  constitutions, 
and  separate  manners  and  customs,  which  go  to 
make  it  extremely  difficult  to  bring  harmoniously 
together  the  different  elements  constituting  the  peo- 
ple. .  .  .  The  British  Government  and  the  British 
race  of  commercial  men  have  developed  the  coun- 
try in  such  a  way  as  no  other  nation  or  Government 
ever  did  in  the  past,  not  for  their  own  interests  only, 
but  also  for  the  benefit  of  the  people." 

That  is  a  very  fair  statement  of  the  case,  and 
is  equally  remote  from  the  false  and  odious  creed 
of  the  anti-British  group,  and  the  cant  of  those 
who  pretend  that  the  British  differ  from  all  other 
people  in  desiring  nothing  but  the  good  of  other 
people. 

The  Behar  Landholders  Association  in  turn  passed 
a  resolution  expressing  gratification  that  efforts  to 
create  disaffection  had  failed  in  that  part  of  India, 
and  an  appeal  promoted  by  the  British  India  Asso- 
ciation, and  signed  by  large  numbers  of  responsible 
inhabitants  of  all  parts  of  Bengal,  called  on  the 
people  to  discontinue  to  give  the  slightest  counte- 

213 


INDIA 

nance  to  wild  and  mischievous  propaganda  which 
tend  to  create  disloyalty  to  British  rule,  and  feelings 
of  animosity  between  different  classes  of  the  com- 
munities of  India.  The  manifesto  contains  the  fol- 
lowing passage: 

"We  venture  to  assert  that  the  bulk  of  the  people 
of  the  country  are  loyal  and  law-abiding.  We  now 
appeal  to  our  countrymen  for  the  display  of  the  prac- 
tical good  sense  which  some  of  our  critics  deny  us. 
We  must  not  forget  that,  whatever  its  shortcomings, 
it  is  to  British  rule  that  we  owe  the  present  security 
of  life  and  property,  the  spread  of  education,  and 
the  progress  that  India  is  now  making  according  to 
modern  civilised  ideals.  This  is  emphatically  the 
worst  time  to  encourage  unworthy  sentiments  and 
rancorous  ill  feeling.  No  true  patriot  will  hesitate 
to  range  himself  with  us  on  the  side  of  law  and  order 
at  the  present  juncture." 

Nawab  Mosheen  ul  Mulk,  who  has  succeeded  Sir 
Syed  Ahmad  as  the  leader  of  Moslem  thought  in 
Upper  India,  very  plainly  informed  Mr.  G.  K. 
Gokhale,  who  was  endeavouring  to  obtain  the  co- 
operation of  the  Mohammedans  in  the  agitation  with 
which  he  is  so  intimately  connected,  that  he  would 
not  be  able  to  express  his  opinions  as  freely  as  he 
now  could,  under  any  Government,  indigenous  or 
alien,  by  which  that  of  Great  Britain  could  conceiv- 
ably be  replaced,  and  he  said  that  the  gulf  between 
Hindoos  and  Mohammedans  was  being  widened 
by  the  present  political  agitation.  Mr.  Gokhale  in 
return  urged  that  the  interests  of  the  Mohammedans 

214 


UNREST 

and  Hindoos  were  identical,  but  in  fact  he  and  his 
cause  suffered  a  serious  rebuff  at  Lucknow. 

While  the  agitators  were  actively  engaged  at 
Lahore  and  Rawal  Pindi,  the  Maharaja  of  the  neigh- 
bouring state  of  Kashmir  issued  a  proclamation 
prohibiting  all  forms  of  agitation  against  the 
British  Government,  an  agent  of  the  agitators 
was  promptly  ejected  from  his  well-governed  state 
by  the  Maharaja  of  Travancore,  and  the  Govern- 
ment of  Mysore  publicly  rebuked  a  journal  which 
had  made  unsustainable  charges  against  the  British 
Government. 

The  Maharaja  of  Bikanir  wrote  to  the  Times,  in 
July  of  last  year,  to  answer  for  the  loyalty  of  his 
order,  which  indeed  the  rise  of  British  rule  saved 
from  extinction  by  the  Mahrattas.  Maharaja  Sind- 
hia,  the  Maharajas  of  Idar,  Patiala,  Cooch  Behar, 
Dholpore,  Jodhpur,  and  Ulwar,  who  have  given, 
and  others  who  had  no  opportunity  of  giving,  prac- 
tical proof  of  their  devotion,  are  well  aware  of  this 
fact,  and  the  ruler  of  Bikanir  pointed  out  that  acts 
of  Bengali  agitators  were  in  no  sense  those  of  the 
Indian  peoples,  and  that  the  ruling  chiefs  were  truly 
loyal,  though  self-interest  might  be  a  factor  in  their 
attitude  —  which  surely  is  matter  for  satisfaction, 
not  regret. 

Upon  the  return  of  the  Maharaja  to  his  cap- 
ital his  people  expressed  their  warm  approval  of 
his  loyal  letter  to  the  Times.,  while  he  in  turn 
congratulated  them  on  having  abstained  from 
taking  any  part  in  anti-British  agitation  and  urged 

215 


INDIA 

them  to  maintain  the  like  prudent  course  in 
future. 

The  Nizam  of  Hyderabad,  one  of  the  three  premier 
princes  of  India,  and  the  ruler  of  the  largest  state, 
assured  Lord  Minto  last  November  "that  the  tradi- 
tional friendship  of  his  house  to  the  British  Raj  was 
fully  reflected  by  his  people.  They  were  loyal  to 
him  and,  like  himself,  faithful  to  the  British  Throne. 
He  did  not  believe  a  single  man  could  be  found  among 
his  subjects  whose  disposition  towards  the  British 
Government  was  unsatisfactory.  Every  Indian  en- 
dowed with  the  least  sense  knew  thoroughly  well 
that  the  peace  and  prosperity  which  his  country  had 
enjoyed  under  the  benign  protection  of  his  Majesty 
and  his  august  mother  would  disappear  the  moment 
that  protection  was  withdrawn  or  weakened.  From 
his  experience  of  twenty -three  years  as  ruler  of  that 
state  he  could  say  that  the  form  of  government  was 
far  less  important  than  the  spirit  of  its  administra- 
tion. The  essential  thing  was  sympathy,  on  which 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  with  the  truly  Royal  instinct 
of  his  race,  laid  stress  on  the  conclusion  of  his  Indian 
tour.  Sympathy  for  the  people  had  been  a  marked 
characteristic  of  the  Government  of  India,  and  the 
steps  now  being  taken  to  associate  the  people  more 
closely  with  the  administration  could  not  fail  to 
bring  that  sympathy  home  to  the  Princes  and 
people  alike." 

Peculiar  significance  attaches  to  his  Highness's 
repudiation  of  the  charge  that  the  Government  of 
India  and  its  servants  are  unsympathetic,  and  those 

216 


UNREST 

who  are  acquainted  with  the  Nizam  know  that  he  is 
no  princely  sycophant,  but  a  man  who  speaks  out- 
right that  which  is  in  his  mind. 

As  a  set-off  to  the  cheap  denunciations  of  Mr. 
Bryan,  who  published  as  his  own  opinion  the  arti- 
cles of  the  Bengali  Babu's  faith,  may  be  taken  the 
evidence  of  Mr.  Niels  Gro'is,  a  graduate  of  Harvard 
University  and  a  student  of  international  affairs. 
He  was  struck  by  the  fact  that  the  Congress  at 
Calcutta  was  a  collection  of  office-seekers,  not  of  pa- 
triots, and  in  a  speech  delivered  at  Boston  last  year 
he  explained  the  special  opportunities  of  studying 
Indian  problems  he  had  enjoyed,  and  compared  the 
disloyalty  of  the  educated  classes  with  the  devotion 
of  the  masses,  who  realised  that  their  safety,  and  in 
fact  their  entire  well-being,  depended  on  the  continu- 
ance of  British  rule.  In  spite  of  this  obvious,  undis- 
puted fact  it  is  the  disloyal  who  are  accepted  as 
witnesses,  and  it  is  the  most  satisfactory  feature  of 
the  projected  reforms  that  another  and  a  far  differ- 
ent class  will  be  enabled  to  give  evidence  in  future. 

It  is  easier  to  locate  the  causes  of  the  unrest  than 
to  prescribe  the  remedies,  some  of  which,  however, 
are  sufficiently  obvious,  whether  or  not  they  are 
likely  to  be  applied.  And  the  first  of  all  is  to  give 
up  the  pretence  that  democratic  government  is  good 
for,  or  possible  for,  India,  and  to  admit  and  act  on 
the  admission  that  the  agitators  are,  as  the  masses 
know,  unfit  to  govern  Bengal  or  any  other  part  of 
India;  the  second  is  to  acknowledge,  and  act  upon  the 
acknowledgment,  that  an  aristocratic  basis  of  gov- 

217 


INDIA 

ernment  is  natural  to  the  Indian  continent,  and  that 
the  people  only  really  revere  their  own  hereditary 
leaders,  who  should  be  confirmed  and  increased  in 
power  and  place.  They  would  develop  indigenous 
constitutions,  like  the  village  arbitration  courts,  so 
infinitely  superior  to  our  own  tribunals,  which  act 
solely  as  promoters  of  litigation,  sedition,  propaga- 
tors of  disloyal  lawyers,  and  as  irritants  and  solvents 
of  the  solidarity  of  Indian  society.  Mercifully, 
reforms  are  now  under  consideration  which  give  to 
the  leaders  of  the  people  the  place  from  which  they 
have  been  well-nigh  ousted  by  the  lawyers  and  other 
products  of  .our  educational  system,  who  bite  the 
hand  that  feeds  them.  Technical  education,  vil- 
lage and  co-operative  banks  have  already  been  men- 
tioned, and  in  decentralisation  lies  a  remedy  than 
which  none  is  more  potent.  It  has  often  been  pointed 
out  that  there  is  too  much  secretarial  government  in 
India,  and  a  good  secretary  may  know,  and  often 
does  know,  nothing  of  the  languages  or  of  the  people 
of  the  country.  All  the  Congress  influence  tends 
towards  centralisation,  and  that  influence  itself  is 
very  much  the  creature  of  this  dread  bacillus  of 
Indian  administration,  which  but  for  the  spread  of 
the  English  language  had  never  been  born. 

One  of  the  chief  planks  of  the  Congress  plat- 
form is  the  separation  of  administrative  and  judicial 
functions,  which  means  further  centralisation  and 
another  blow  to  the  influence  of  the  district  officer. 
True,  this  change  would  provide  a  great  many  more 
appointments  for  graduates  of  the  agitator  class, 

218 


UNREST 

and  more  particularly  for  lawyers,  who  are  the  soul 
of  the  agitation  and  its  most  able  exponents.  These 
men  are,  of  course,  capable  of  fulfilling  most  offices 
as  far  as  intellect  and  education  go,  but  the  masses 
do  not  want  them,  do  not  like  them,  and  do  not  trust 
them.  They  appreciate  village  arbitration,  or,  fail- 
ing that,  adjudication  by  the  impartial  English  offi- 
cer, be  the  matter  one  for  revenue  or  magisterial 
court. 

The  power  of  the  district  officer  should  be  increased, 
not,  as  the  Congress  wishes,  further  impaired;  the 
right  of  appeal  should  be  largely  reduced,  not,  as 
they  wish,  extended,  but,  after  all,  the  evil  can  never 
be  fairly  righted  till  Western  literature  ceases  to  be 
general  food  for  the  vulgar,  and  is  taught  only  in 
quarters  wherein  it  is  likely  to  be  understood  in  its 
relation  to  countries  and  peoples  to  which  its  lessons 
in  different  degrees  apply.  India  is  a  country  of 
caste  and  class,  and  education  should  be  suited  to 
those  educated,  and  not  thrown  headlong  at  the 
hungry.  The  local  governments,  too,  should  be 
free  from  interference  on  the  part  of  the  Government 
of  India,  and,  except  in  respect  of  matters  of  Imperial 
concern,  they  should  be  masters  in  their  own  house. 

The  Indian  Congress  should  be  brought  under 
regulation,  and  the  danger  of  alienating  the  Moham- 
medans, of  all  classes,  and  the  Hindoo  masses,  who 
are  loyal,  by  yielding  to  the  Babus  and  Brahmins, 
should  be  more  thoroughly  appreciated.  Frequent 
prosecutions  for  sedition  have  of  late  been  insti- 
tuted, and  sentences  of  some  severity  have  been 

219 


INDIA 

passed;  but  the  license  of  the  press  should  be  curbed 
by  binding  over  editors  under  heavy  penalties  to 
good  conduct  at  the  first  appearance  of  sedition  in 
their  papers,  and  of  enforcing  their  recognisances 
whenever  they  next  offend.  The  Indian  press  is 
not  as  that  of  England,  and  may  enjoy  the  same 
liberty  when  it  shows  the  same  sense  of  responsi- 
bility. The  Government  must  regain  the  confidence 
of  the  masses  for  the  local  officer,  and  inspire  a  feeling 
that  its  strength  is  equal  to  its  justice.  Not  that 
the  Government  has  been  unmindful  of  the  respon- 
sibility which  rests  upon  it  at  this  juncture. 

In  November  (1907)  it  passed  an  Act  for  "the 
prevention  of  seditious  meetings,"  which  enabled 
provincial  administrations  to  declare  any  part  of 
their  territories  proclaimed  areas  in  which  no  pub- 
lic meetings  are  allowed  without  permission  under 
penalty  of  fine  and  imprisonment.  Mr.  Gokhale 
opposed  the  bill  in  the  Viceroy's  Council  and  urged 
that  the  agitators  were  few  in  number,  which  indeed 
is  true  and  is  a  useful  admission.  Would  that  they 
possessed  powers  for  evil  only  in  proportion  to  their 
numbers!  Lord  Minto  freely  allowed  that  there 
was  no  disloyalty  among  the  Indian  masses,  but  he 
could  not  minimise  the  significance  of  the  Lahore 
and  Rawal  Pindi  riots,  the  insults  to  Europeans, 
the  assaults,  looting,  and  boycotting  in  Eastern 
Bengal,  nor  forget  the  seditious  addresses,  news- 
papers, and  leaflets,  designed  to  inflame  social  feel- 
ing, and  —  fortunately  all  in  vain  —  to  seduce  the 
Indian  army  from  its  loyalty.  At  the  same  time  he 

220 


UNREST 

disclaimed  any  intention  of  checking  the  growth  of 
political  thought,  which  the  Government  only  desired 
to  direct  into  beneficial  channels.  The  new  Act  was 
at  once  put  into  force  in  one  district  of  Eastern 
Bengal,  but  up  till  now  in  no  other  locality.  It  had 
previously  been  found  necessary  to  promulgate  an 
ordinance  for  regulating  public  meetings  in  Eastern 
Bengal  and  the  Punjaub,  and,  as  the  necessity  for 
such  regulation  continued,  it  was  considered  desir- 
able to  pass  this  permanent  Act. 

The  position  of  the  Mohammedans  and  the  ne- 
cessity which  exists  for  giving  them  representation 
having  some  proportion,  not  to  their  numbers,  but 
to  their  weight,  character,  strength,  and  influence, 
can  never  be  overlooked  when  the  remedies  for 
unrest  are  under  consideration. 

While  the  Congress  and  Babu  factions  perpetually 
importune  the  Government  with  various  demands, 
the  Mohammedans  stand  aside,  having  confidence 
in  the  impartial  justice  of  their  rulers,  an  attitude 
which  is  almost  inconceivable  to  those  accustomed 
to  English  party  government.  There  is  no  doubt, 
however,  that  the  opinion  is  widespread  that  agita- 
tion pays,  and  the  writer  has  frequently  heard  the 
honours  list  discussed  by  Indian  gentlemen  with  the 
remark,  "Only  the  natives  who  worry  and  oppose 
the  Government  are  remembered  by  it  on  these 
occasions.  Loyalty  does  not  pay."  The  Moham- 
medans have  always  refused  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  Hindoo  Congress,  and  have  invariably  given 
the  Government  silent  but  effectual  support,  and, 


INDIA 

in  view  of  the  occurrences  of  1905,  and  the  manner 
in  which  their  approval  of  the  partition  of  Bengal, 
of  the  population  of  which  they  form  two-thirds, 
was  concealed  and  denied,  they  thought  it  necessary 
to  consider  their  position.  They  had  organised  a 
great  demonstration  in  favour  of  partition,  which 
they  abandoned  at  the  express  desire  of  the  British 
officials,  lest  it  might  result  in  a  breach  of  the  peace, 
and  they  never  concealed  their  regret  at  the  resig- 
nation of  Sir  Bampfylde  Fuller,  or  their  resentment 
at  the  manner  in  which  certain  members  of  Parlia- 
ment of  the  Congress  group  "unwarrantably  took 
upon  themselves  to  speak  on  behalf  of  the  millions 
of  India."  They  accordingly  sent  a  deputation  to 
the  Viceroy  urging  the  Government  to  take  more 
efficient  measures  for  finding  out  the  opinions  of 
their  community,  and  for  giving  it  due  representa- 
tion in  any  scheme  of  reform  which  might  then,  or 
at  any  later  date,  be  under  consideration. 


222 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  CONGRESS 

SIXTEEN  years  have  passed  since  Sir  William 
Hunter  wrote  that  the  India  of  that  day  was 
the  India  of  the  national  political  Congress. 
He  said  one  of  the  chief  results  of  the  reorganisation 
of  Indian  education,  and  the  throwing  open  of  the 
Government  schools  and  colleges  to  all  Indian  sub- 
jects, irrespective  of  their  race,  creed,  or  caste,  was 
to  convert  what  was  formerly  a  hostile  into  a  loyal 
India.  We  now  know,  however,  that  the  result  has 
been  to  create  an  English-educated  class,  which  can 
hardly  be  described  as  conspicuously  loyal.  But  if 
Sir  William  Hunter  was  wrong  in  his  forecast,  in  so 
far  as  it  related  to  the  Congress,  it  is  well  to  remem- 
ber that  he  was  right  as  regards  the  masses  and  in 
reminding  his  readers  that  India  had,  nearly  up  to 
the  time  at  which  he  wrote,  been  more  or  less  hostile, 
and  that  the  Company's  servants  failed  in  a  policy 
of  conciliation.  Hunter  confidently  answered  in  the 
affirmative  the  question,  Can  we  conciliate  India? 
He  said  that  the  desire  of  the  classes,  we  sometimes 
hear  spoken  of  as  the  troublesome  classes,  is  no 
longer,  as  in  Lord  Metcalf's  time,  to  get  rid  of 
our  Government,  but  to  be  admitted  within  it  to  a 

223 


INDIA 

larger  share.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  this  of  the 
Babu  agitators  and  their  dupes  at  the  present 
moment.  If  words  mean  anything,  they  do  wish  to 
get  rid  of  us,  merely  retaining  our  army  to  keep 
them  in  the  seats  of  the  mighty,  from  which,  with- 
out it,  they  know  they  must  inevitably,  and  amidst 
universal  rejoicing,  be  ejected.  Yet  it  is  true  that 
in  1885,  and  during  the  Afghan  War  and  the  war  in 
the  Transvaal,  satisfactory  proofs  of  loyal  friendli- 
ness were  forthcoming  from  most  quarters  except 
Bengal  and  Poona.  Even  from  Bengal  came  reas- 
suring notes,  for  perhaps  the  Babus  dreaded  the 
shadow  of  the  realisation  of  their  dream.  The 
feudatory  princes  have  most  nobly  vindicated  their 
claims  to  be  friends  and  allies  of  the  Empire,  and  the 
masses  of  the  people  are  quite  loyal  and  contented. 
Sir  William  Hunter  describes  the  Congress,  called 
by  its  members  the  Indian  National  Congress,  as  a 
most  conspicuous  outcome  of  the  new  sense  on  the 
part  of  the  people  of  interest  in  the  Government. 
It  might  be  objected  that  the  Congress  is  not  Indian, 
and  is  not  national,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  by  any 
means  supported  by  all  the  nations  in  India;  but, 
however  that  may  be,  it  consists  of  delegates,  whether 
or  not  elected,  from  the  various  provinces,  who  have 
annually  met  together  for  twenty-two  years  in  order 
to  discuss  what  in  their  opinion  are  the  political 
interests  of  the  country,  and  every  year  they  pass 
practically  identical  resolutions.  They  complain  of 
the  administration  of  the  Excise,  and  of  the  Arms 
Act;  they  ask  for  a  reduction  in  the  salt-duty,  so 


THE    CONGRESS 

largely  decreased  in  the  last  few  years;  for  further 
employment  in  the  public  service;  that  the  House 
of  Commons  should  exercise  more  control  over 
Indian  revenues  and  expenditure,  and  that  the 
natives  of  the  country  should  have  a  more  effective 
voice  in  making  their  own  laws.  At  present  the 
chief  legislative  authority  is  the  Viceroy's  Legislative 
Council,  which  makes  laws  for  the  whole  Empire. 
It  consists  of  the  Executive  Council,  with  addi- 
tional members  who  are  selected  from  the  influential 
classes,  and  from  the  British  mercantile  commu- 
nity, and  also  other  additional  members  nominated 
by  the  governments  concerned  to  represent  the 
great  provincial  governments,  of  which  latter  class 
the  writer  of  these  pages  was  a  member.  The 
natives  of  the  country  were  well  represented  among 
the  additional  members,  and  a  great  many  of  the 
Congress  guns  have  been  spiked,  since  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Excise  has  been  improved,  the  salt- 
tax  has  been  largely  reduced,  the  employment  of 
natives  of  India  increased,  and  the  legislative  Coun- 
cil reformed  in  the  direction,  if  not  to  the  extent, 
desired,  for  Lord  Cross's  Act  provided  for  the  annual 
discussion  of  the  Indian  expenditure  in  the  Viceroy's 
Council,  for  giving  members  the  right  to  ask  ques- 
tions, and  for  the  increase  in  the  number  of  the 
members  of  the  Legislative  Council. 

The  moderate  wing  of  the  Congress  is  understood 
to  favour  a  gradual  development  which  in  the  end 
will  make  India  an  autonomous  member  of  the 
British  Empire,  and  Mr.  Gokhale  is  regarded  as  a 


INDIA 

member  of  this  branch.  Certainly  in  England  his 
utterances  have  been  such  as  are  well  within  the 
purview  of  such  a  programme.  But  there  are  others 
who  desire  to  separate  from  Britain  at  the  earli- 
est possible  opportunity,  and  to  this  end  pursue  a 
persistent  campaign  of  misrepresentation.  Of  this 
school  is  Mr.  Tilak,  the  extremist  nominee  for  the 
Presidentship  in  1906,  who  was  convicted  some  years 
ago  of  attempting  to  excite  disaffection,  but  it  is 
only  recently  that  politicians  of  this  type  have  had 
a  preponderating  influence  in  what  was  formerly, 
upon  the  whole,  regarded  as  a  moderate  and  well- 
affected  association.  The  Mohammedans,  however, 
who  have  good  reasons  for,  and  good  opportunities 
of,  being  well  posted  as  to  its  objects  and  intentions, 
have  always  regarded  it  with  distrust  and  suspicion. 
The  partition  of  Bengal  was  a  godsend  to  the  ex- 
tremist section,  which,  encouraged  by  the  attitude 
of  certain  politicians  at  home,  in  and  out  of 
Parliament,  made  the  most  of  the  not  unnatural 
objections  raised  by  the  Babu  class  to  this  adminis- 
trative measure.  Day  by  day  the  virulent  abuse  of 
Government  gathered  volume. 

Soon  even  Babu  S.  N.  Bannerji,  whose  hatred 
and  resentment  have  been  sufficiently  pronounced, 
was  surpassed  by  Babu  Bepin  Chandra  Pal,  the  edi- 
tor, till  a  prosecution  was  launched,  or  part  editor, 
or  proprietor,  or  part  proprietor  of  New  India  and 
Bande  Mataram.  The  latter  paper  plainly  states 
that  "our  British  friends  should  be  distinctly  told 
that  their  point  of  view  is  not  ours,  they  desire  to 

226 


THE    CONGRESS 

make  the  government  of  India  popular  without 
ceasing  in  any  sense  to  be  essentially  British.  We 
desire  to  make  it  autonomous  and  absolutely  free  of 
British  control.  We  must  go  to  the  hamlets." 
And  they  have  gone  to  the  hamlets,  to  debauch  the 
loyalty  of  the  peasants,  and  they  are  endeavouring, 
with  as  small  prospect  of  success,  to  capture  the 
Congress  caucus,  the  chief  obstacle  being  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  moderate  men  of  means,  who  supply 
the  sinews  of  war,  and  have  no  idea  of  generally 
running  amok,  and  losing  all  that  they  have  in 
the  resulting  disorder.  Then  the  peasants,  and  the 
masses  generally,  have  no  sympathy  and  no  concern 
with  the  movement,  nor  the  old-fashioned  Hindoos, 
nor  of  course  the  Mohammedans,  who  have  publicly 
recorded  their  disagreement  whenever  opportunity 
has  offered.  They  have  indeed  recently  started  a 
Congress  of  their  own,  called  the  All  India  Moslem 
League,  as  a  protest  against  the  assumption  by  the 
Hindoo  Congress  of  the  epithets  Indian  and  National. 
Among  the  objects  of  this  league  are  the  promotion 
of  loyalty  to  England  and  of  an  attitude  of 
readiness  to  fight  for  the  British  Government. 

In  the  end  Mr.  Naoroji  and  not  Mr.  Tilak  was 
nominated  President  for  1906,  but  the  victory  really 
lay  with  the  extremist  party,  whose  views  he  ex- 
pressed in  a  speech,  asking  for  self-government 
like  that  of  the  United  Kingdom  or  the  Colonies, 
and  denouncing  the  present  government  of  India  as 
a  barbarous  despotism  unworthy  of  British  instincts, 
principles,  and  civilisation.  He  further  advocated 

227 


INDIA 

the  raising  of  a  corps  of  missionaries  to  go  to  the 
hamlets  and  preach  this  creed  under  the  supervision 
of  the  Congress  caucus,  which,  as  has  been  already 
remarked,  maintains  a  branch  in  England. 

The  two  parties  in  the  Congress  are  now  known 
as  the  Moderates  and  the  Nationalists,  the  latter 
having  taken  their  title  from  the  Irish  party,  whose 
organ,  the  Freeman's  Journal  of  Dublin,  has  pub- 
lished various  articles  in  favour  of  an  autonomous 
India.  A  nice  dispute  arose  between  these  two 
parties  as  regards  the  place  at  which  the  meeting  for 
1907  should  be  held,  and  as  to  the  President  who 
should  preside,  and  finally  Surat  and  Dr.  Rash 
Behary  Ghose  were  declared  the  winners.  Dr. 
Ghose  is  accounted  a  Moderate,  and  no  doubt  he 
may  well  be  so  described  in  comparison  with  some 
of  his  competitors  for  the  post  of  President,  but  it 
should  be  distinctly  understood  that,  though  there 
may  be  two  factions  in  the  Congress,  both  of  them 
are  now  associated  with  disloyal  propaganda. 

Nevertheless  the  Congress  is  not  sufficiently  ex- 
treme to  satisfy  these  extremists,  for  the  Amrita 
Bazaar  Patrika  has  published  a  series  of  articles 
entitled,  "How  to  make  the  Congress  useful."  In 
one  of  these  it  is  admitted  that  the  association  con- 
sists merely  of  English-educated  middle-class  men 
and  that  to  make  it  really  national,  zemindars,  mer- 
chants, and  representatives  of  the  cultivators  of 
the  soil  should  be  included  within  its  ranks.  The 
reason  why  they  keep  aloof  is  well  known,  for  the 
Congress  only  interests  itself  in  political  matters,  and 

228 


THE    CONGRESS 

it  is  an  open  secret  that  zemindars  and  men  of 
higher  rank,  though  they  may  not  join  it,  provide 
it  with  the  sinews  of  war.  The  Amrita  Bazaar 
Patrika,  however,  in  an  unwonted  burst  of  candour, 
asks  its  readers  to  remember  "that  many  of  our 
wants  and  grievances  are  of  our  own  making,  and 
that  it  is  within  our  power  to  remove  them  without 
any  official  or  outside  help.  No  nation  has  ever 
been  able  to  regenerate  itself  by  relying  on  others. 
It  is  impossible  for  the  Indian  National  Congress  to 
bring  about  the  salvation  of  India  so  long  as  it  does 
not  teach  the  people  self-reliance.  The  Congress 
to  be  of  any  use  should  teach  the  people  to  arrange 
for  their  own  education,  to  cease  quarrelling  amongst 
themselves,  to  develop  their  industries  and  agri- 
cultural resources,  and  to  learn  the  art  of  self- 
government." 

It  has  been  mentioned  that  a  schism  arose  regard- 
ing the  appointment  of  a  President  last  year,  and 
that  the  extremists  wanted  Mr.  Tilak,  whom  they 
described  as  a  hero  and  a  martyr,  because  he  was 
sent  to  prison  ten  years  ago  for  good  and  sufficient 
reasons.  There  are  degrees  amongst  the  agitators, 
Babu  Surendra  Nath  Bannerji  being  regarded  as 
more  moderate  than  Babu  Bepin  Chandra  Pal. 
Bannerji  is,  however,  sufficiently  hostile,  and,  though 
he  is  believed  to  have  renounced  Hindoo  orthodoxy 
and  prejudices,  in  his  speeches  he  generally  appeals 
to  them  in  order  to  arouse  enmity  against  the  Gov- 
ernment. It  is  far  too  readily  assumed  that  the 
railway  strike  which  has  lately  taken  place  has  not 

229 


INDIA 

been  fomented  by  these  agitators,  for  it  is  well  known 
that  their  emissaries  have  been  exceedingly  active 
amongst  the  employees  of  the  East  Indian  Railway, 
and  most  disgraceful  speeches  have  been  made  at 
important  stations  on  the  line. 

Mr.  Skrine,  who  compiled  a  very  interesting  life 
of  Sir  William  Hunter,  probably  altogether  overesti- 
mated his  hero's  influence  when  he  wrote  that  what- 
ever result  the  Congress  achieved  was  due  to  the 
interest  of  the  latter  with  the  British  public.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  Hunter's  support  was  of  that  dis- 
cerning and  moderate  character,  which  the  Congress, 
now  become  a  society  dominated  by  the  anti-British 
damned-Barebones  school  of  controversialists  never 
appreciates.  It  is  more  accurate  to  regard  the  Con- 
gress as  one  of  many  results,  not  as  one  of  the  chief 
causes,  of  the  unrest  in  India,  to  which,  however,  it 
has  of  late  most  actively  contributed,  while,  since  it 
has  declared  the  boycott  to  be  a  legitimate  weapon, 
it  has  committed  itself  to  open  defiance  of  the  law. 
At  its  meeting  in  1906  resolutions  were  sprung  and 
passed  without  any  real  discussion,  and  votes  were 
not  taken,  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  far 
those  present  concurred  in  what  are  put  forward 'as 
its  deliberate  opinions.  In  1907  the  meeting  broke 
up  after  a  free  fight,  and  there  was  not  even  a  pre- 
tence of  any  resolutions.  It  is,  however,  highly 
improbable  that  the  majority  really  believe  that 
representation  after  the  English  pattern  could  or 
should  be  introduced  into  India,  or  that  compul- 
sory education  could  or  should  be  forced  upon  a 

230 


THE    CONGRESS 

country  so  utterly  unprepared  for  so  advanced  a 
measure. 

As  it  is  of  much  importance  that  the  facts  regard- 
ing the  Congress  should  be  known,  it  may  be  per- 
missible to  take  two  exponents  of  its  policy,  one  in 
India  and  one  in  England,  whereby  a  fair  idea  will 
be  gathered  of  what  this  movement  really  means. 

Mr.  Subramania  Iyer,  a  capable  Brahmin,  lectured 
at  Tanjore  not  long  since,  and  he  is  as  good  an 
example  of  a  moderate  Congressman,  as  Congress- 
men go,  as  could  well  be  quoted,  having  been  for 
many  years  editor  of  one  of  the  best  native  papers 
in  India,  the  Hindu.  He  spoke  of  the  short,  bright 
interval  of  Mahratta  rule,  when  the  superiority  of 
the  Hindoo  nation  was  asserted.  Now  the  main 
facts  regarding  this  miserable  period  in  the  history 
of  India,  when  the  Mahrattas  robbed  and  plundered 
at  will,  and  attempted  nothing  like  peaceable  or 
orderly  administration,  will  be  found  in  the  first 
chapter  of  this  little  book.  His  review  of  the  relig- 
ion of  the  country  is  so  little  accurate  that  he 
describes  temple  worship  and  perpetual  widowhood 
as  practices  of  Buddhism,  and  the  influence  of 
Buddhism  on  Hindooism  as  bad,  which  is  entirely 
contrary  to  the  fact.  But  "Shadwell  sometimes 
deviates  into  sense,"  and  Mr.  Subramania  Iyer 
does  point  out  that  prior  to  British  rule  there  was  no 
political  unity  and  no  political  consciousness.  He 
regards  the  Queen's  proclamation  as  extorted  by 
fear,  and  says  the  moment  the  cause  for  fear 
was  gone  the  promised  reforms  were  abandoned. 

231 


INDIA 

Chapters  II,  III,  IV,  and  V  of  this  work,  which  are 
wholly  unargumentative,  should  supply  a  sufficient 
answer  to  this  charge. 

He  then  declares  that  not  complete  severance 
from  England,  but  self-government  on  the  Colonial 
model,  is  the  object  set  before  himself  and  his  friends, 
and  he  quotes  a  judgment  which,  not  without  reason, 
occasioned  great  surprise,  by  Mitter  and  Fletcher, 
JJ.  of  the  High  Court  of  Bengal,  which  he  describes 
as  a  golden  declaration,  and  which  certainly  gave 
to  Svaraj  a  meaning  contrary  to  that  which  the 
word  obviously  owns.  "Svaraj  then,"  says  the  ex- 
editor,  "is  our  political  ambition,  and  Svadeshi  and 
boycott  are  our  weapons.  India  will  not  be  a  sub- 
ject nation  forever,  now  we  have  the  support  of  the 
High  Court  judges." 

Now,  svaraj  simply  means  self-government  sans 
phrase,  and  does  not  connote  dependence.  On 
another  occasion,  these  discourses  being  suited  to 
the  audiences,  the  same  speaker  said:  "What  is  the 
result  of  a  century's  rule  in  India?  Destitution, 
disease,  physical  and  moral  emasculation."  Of 
course  Lord  Curzon,  who  endeavoured  to  deal  with 
the  difficulty  at  the  root,  and  to  amend  the  deplo- 
rable educational  system,  comes  in  for  unmitigated 
condemnation  for  "his  reactionary  designs  and  his 
autocratic  manners." 

Then  take  a  representative  of  the  Congress  in 
England,  preferably  a  Member  of  Parliament,  either 
Mr.  O'Donnell  or  Sir  Henry  Cotton,  whichever  be 
the  leader  of  the  little  company  of  captains  which 


THE    CONGRESS 

represents  in  the  House  of  Commons  views  which 
are  abhorred  by  all  the  Europeans  in  India,  civil, 
military,  and  commercial,  and  receives  no  support 
from  any  quarter,  other  than  the  Congress,  the 
Babus  of  Bengal,  and  the  Brahmins  of  Poona.  It 
may  be  convenient  to  take  Sir  Henry  Cotton  in 
preference  to  Mr.  O'Donnell  for  the  moment, 
because,  like  myself,  regardless  of  the  warning  of 
Job,  he  has  written  a  book,  in  which  he  says  that 
"the  existence  of  a  Liberal  administration  compels 
the  adoption  of  liberal  and  sympathetic  principles 
in  dealing  with  Indian  questions  on  the  spot." 
Now  if  there  is  one  thing  upon  which  all  sane  men 
are  agreed  it  is  that  party  politics  should  not  be 
introduced  into  our  Indian  Empire,  the  inhabi- 
tants of  which  regard  them  in  the  same  light  as  the 
Shah,  of  whom  I  heard  in  Persia,  who  when  an  effort 
was  made  to  explain  to  him  what  Whig  and  Tory 
meant  in  England,  summed  up  the  subject  by  say- 
ing :  "  Why  does  not  the  King  knock  these  madmen's 
heads  together  till  they  do  agree?"  At  any  rate  it 
is  needless  to  say  that  the  slightest  suspicion  of 
party  advocacy  is  forbidden  to  civil  servants,  and 
any  infraction  of  this  rule  would  very  properly 
involve  their  dismissal  from  the  public  service. 
Indeed  continuity  of  policy  has  been  followed  with 
rare  exceptions,  and  these  relate  solely  to  external 
relations.  Again,  a  complete  ignorance  of  what  is 
common  knowledge  in  India,  or  an  evident  desire  to 
obscure  the  facts,  is  exhibited  by  assertions  like 
this:  "The  Babus  rule  public  opinion  from  Peshawar 

233 


INDIA 

to  Chittagong."  Now  the  Babus  are  the  most 
unpopular  class  in  India,  and  no  traveller  returns 
and  writes  a  book  without  anecdotes  which  illus- 
trate this  perfectly  notorious  fact.  It  might  fairly 
be  said  that  the  Babus  of  Bengal  and  the  Brahmins 
of  Poona  are  the  leaders  of  the  English-educated 
anti-British  class,  but  public  opinion,  thank  heaven ! 
is  not  yet  confined  to  these  classes.  What  is  to 
become  of  the  English,  who  have  made  such  a  mess 
of  the  great  Indian  problem,  whose  chief  success  in 
the  opinion  of  Sir  H.  Cotton  has  been  the  perma- 
nent settlement  of  Bengal,  to  protect  the  cultivating 
tenant  against  the  landlord,  under  which  settlement 
the  British  Government  has  been  actively  legislating 
at  frequent  intervals  ever  since  the  days  of  Lord 
Cornwallis;  whose  Indian  railways  have  ruined  the 
carrying  trade,  just  as  English  railways  ruined  the 
stage-coaches;  whose  education  is  only  partially 
successful  because  it  is  not  compulsory;  whose  tea 
and  indigo  industries  are  bolstered  up  in  some  man- 
ner of  which  no  one  else  is  aware  by  public  money, 
while  the  estates  themselves  are  watered  with  the 
blood  and  tears  of  unwilling  slaves,  who  neverthe- 
less cannot  be  got,  at  the  expiry  of  their  indentures, 
to  leave  their  prison,  in  which  they  settle  for  life; 
whose  census  commissioners  are  such  lunatics  that 
they  see  in  these  settlers  the  salvation  of  at  least 
one  little  province?  Surely  it  would  be  better  that 
these  bunglers  and  oppressors,  the  English,  should 
as  soon  as  possible  leave  the  country  to  be  governed 
by  the  Babus,  and  that,  it  appears,  actually  is  the 

234 


THE    CONGRESS 

solution.  Sir  Henry  Cotton  positively  writes:  "It 
is  the  purest  folly  for  us  to  continue  to  rule  on  worn- 
out  lines  only  suited  to  a  slave  population,  and  the 
principal  object  of  the  Indian  Government  should  be 
to  apply  itself  to  the  peaceful  reconstruction  of  a 
native  administration  in  its  place.  The  withdrawal 
of  the  military  support  would  not  be  injurious  to 
Anglo-Indians,  but  would  constrain  them  to  adopt 
a  more  conciliatory  demeanour  towards  the  people 
of  the  country.  England  could  withdraw  her  own 
standing  army,  and  secure  treaty  rights  for  India 
from  the  European  powers."  This  she  would  no 
doubt  do  after  the  abolition  of  the  army  and  the  navy, 
and  with  this  climax  of  preposterous  politics,  quota- 
tion from  "  New  India  "  may  end.  It  will  indeed  be 
a  new  India  when  these  principles  are  adopted,  and 
yet  it  is  curious  to  see  how,  even  in  a  work  like  this, 
a  residuum  of  common-sense  clings  to  a  man  who 
has  gone  through  what  in  most  cases  proves  to  be  a 
highly  educative  experience.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  Labour  benches  will  altogether  agree  with  Sir 
Henry  Cotton  when  he  writes  that  "the  basis  of 
internal  order  in  India  is  a  patrician  aristocracy 
of  indigenous  growth  trained  to  control  and  lead 
the  lower  orders."  Now  such  aristocracy  would  of 
course  govern  India,  if  they  had  the  chance,  accord- 
ing to  Indian  ideas,  as  the  Congress  party  says;  and 
what  are  Indian  ideas?  The  rule  of  caste,  wealth, 
birth,  and  strength,  and  of  forced  labour,  which  is 
not  exactly  the  theory  which  finds  favour  with  those 
who  have  been  induced  to  support  this  propaganda 

235 


INDIA 

in  England.  Again,  what  will  the  allies  of  the  little 
Congress  party  in  Parliament  say  to  this:  "The 
maintenance  of  an  hereditary  landholding  class  is 
the  corner-stone  of  internal  political  reconstruction. 
The  lower  orders  stand  in  urgent  need  of  an  aris- 
tocracy above  them.  The  prosperity  of  every  coun- 
try requires  that  there  should  exist  within  it,  not 
only  a  proletariat,  the  great  body  of  the  people  who 
devote  themselves  to  labour,  but  also  a  class  of 
capitalists  who  provide  funds  which  enable  labour 
to  become  productive.  It  is  only  under  the  fertil- 
ising influence  of  capital  that  labour  is  productive"? 
This  is  not  quite  the  note  of  the  ^speeches*  which 
are  delivered  on  this  subject  by  socialists.  Nor  do 
they  recognise  that  birth  as  well  as  election  and 
nomination  is  a  principle  of  selection.  Mr.  Ramsay 
Macdonald,  the  whip  of  the  Labour  party,  commits 
himself  to  the  plain  statement  that  capital  is  the 
enemy.  In  short,  Sir  Henry  Cotton  can  no  more 
than  other  people  run  with  the  hare  and  hunt  with 
the  hounds,  and  it  is  impossible  to  condemn  your 
fellow-countrymen,  root  and  branch,  and  throw  in 
your  lot  with  hostile  and  unreasonable  critics  of  your 
class  and  calling,  and  at  the  same  time  to  obtain 
credit  for  retaining  some  saving  sense  of  sanity  upon 
side  issues  of  the  alphabet  of  economical  and  politi- 
cal questions.  It  is  of  course  very  difficult  to  sat- 
isfy democrats  and  socialists  in  England  and  an 
aristocratic  oligarchy  of  Brahmins  and  landlords  in 
India,  and  although  the  latter  seems  able  to  per- 
suade the  former  that  all  will  be  right,  if  they  can 

236 


THE    CONGRESS 

oust  us,  as  the  Peshwas  ousted  their  masters,  and 
ruled  in  their  stead,  yet  an  ex-official  turned  anti- 
official  writing  on  this  subject  obviously  occupies 
so  difficult  a  position  as  to  be  entitled  to  com- 
miseration. 

Another  ex-Indian  civilian  and  ex-Member  of 
Parliament,  Sir  William  Wedderburn,  lately  pub- 
licly stated  that  the  Indian  people  complained  that 
the  masses  are  in  extreme  destitution,  and  that  it  is 
owing  to  the  effects  of  a  disastrous  administration 
that  the  country  is  scourged  by  disease  and  famine. 
It  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  this  that,  upon  the  agi- 
tators' own  showing,  the  people  of  India  have  no 
means  of  making  known  their  feelings;  that  no  such 
opinions  as  these  are  expressed  by  their  hereditary 
leaders,  and  that  the  people  repudiate  as  their  rep- 
resentative the  English-educated  Babu  class,  which 
is  practically  denationalised,  and  merely  joined  for 
the  present  with  the  members  of  the  Brahmin  caste 
because  they  can,  when  thus  reinforced,  more  easily 
harry  and  harass  the  administration. 

It  is  of  course  extremely  mischievous  that  ex-offi- 
cials should  become  anti-officials,  and  lecture  about 
the  country  that  independent  opinion  is  unanimous, 
that  the  people  think  this  and  think  that,  and  it  is 
worse  than  mischievous  that  they  should  asperse  an 
active  and  able  administration  by  attributing  to  its 
action  calamities  which  it  does  all  that  humanity 
can  do  to  alleviate.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  refrain  from 
noticing  that  ex-officials  who  have  spent  their  lives 
as  concurring,  and  presumably  willing  instruments  of 

237 


INDIA 

Government,  and  who  no  sooner  leave  its  service 
than  they  state  that  contact  between  Europeans  and 
Asiatics  is  prejudicial  to  the  latter  race,  have  to 
explain  why  in  their  own  careers  they  failed  so 
conspicuously  to  practise  what  so  incessantly  and 
insistently  they  preach.  Hostile  though  it  is  to  Gov- 
ernment, the  Congress  at  first  welcomed  Lord  Cur- 
zon,  and  flattered  him  profusely,  but  they  roundly 
denounced  him  when  he  declined  to  be  led,  and 
refused  to  receive  the  President  of  one  year  who 
wished  to  lay  the  resolution  of  the  Congress  officially 
before  him.  It  might,  however,  lead  to  the  grossest 
misunderstanding  in  India  if  the  head  of  the  Govern- 
ment received  officially  a  member  of  a  body  which 
claims  to  represent  300,000,000  of  people,  of  whom 
probably  99J  per  cent,  have  never  even  heard  of  its 
existence.  Nor  would  the  Viceroy  be  carrying  out  his 
elementary  duty  if  he  encouraged  anything  which 
admitted  the  false  and  fatal  principle  of  party  poli- 
tics into  Indian  administration. 

Partition  gave  an  opportunity  to  the  Congress 
party  of  exhibiting  their  strength,  and,  success- 
ful as  they  have  been  in  making  demonstrations, 
their  success  would  have  been  even  greater  had 
they  not  combined  with  this  agitation  the  policy 
of  Svadeshi,  which  their  sympathisers  outside  Ben- 
gal have  shown  little  inclination  to  accept,  and  of 
boycott,  which  has  altogether  failed  from  the  com- 
mencement. 

The  meeting  of  1907  proved  altogether  abortive 
and  broke  up  in  confusion,  but  even  then  some  craft 

238 


THE    CONGRESS 

and  subtlety  was  displayed  by  the  leaders  in  claim- 
ing that  the  Moderates  were  overwhelmed  by  the 
Extremists,  the  fact  being  that  both  wings  are 
hostile  to  British  rule  in  India. 


239 


CHAPTER  X 

SOCIAL  REFORM 

THE  movement  in  favour  of  social  reform  in 
India  has  been  overwhelmed  by  political 
agitation,  which  alone  has  of  late  engaged 
the  energies  of  the  English-educated  classes.  Indeed 
the  agitators  have  realised  the  absolute  necesssity 
of  adopting  the  conservative  attitude  which  is  that 
of  the  masses.  Ten  years  ago  all  those  who  are 
now  clamouring  against  British  rule  in  India  were 
eagerly  attacking  customs  which  are  woven  into  the 
very  framework  of  Indian  society,  and  at  that  time 
a  great  deal  was  heard  about  the  necessity  for  edu- 
cating women.  Even  then,  in  South  India  at  any 
rate,  where  female  education  is  most  advanced,  the 
prejudice  against  sending  girls  to  public  schools  was 
somewhat  wearing  away,  partly  owing  to  the  parents 
having  become  wise  enough  to  see  that  there  is  no 
greater  impropriety  in  girls  going  to  school  than 
boys,  and  partly  because  of  the  substitution,  wher- 
ever practicable,  of  female  for  male  teaching  agency. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  among  Hindoos  generally 
the  impression  prevails  that  education  is  likely  to 
lead  women  to  wrong-doing,  and  however  much  the 
Government,  philanthropic  and  missionary  bodies, 

240 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

and  wealthy  and  generous  individuals  may  do  to 
advance  this  cause,  the  real  spadework  must  be 
accomplished,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  cost  must 
be  borne,  by  the  people  themselves,  who  have  the 
cause  at  heart.  As  the  eminent  Indian  education- 
alist, Mr.  Raganatha  Mudaliar,  said  of  persons  of 
his  own  position  and  education,  "We  feel  it  to  be  a 
grievous  sin  to  marry  our  infant  daughters,  but  even 
if  we  could  summon  up  sufficient  courage  to  set  at 
naught  the  Shastraic  prohibition,  we  succumb  to  the 
weeping  entreaties  and  expostulations  of  our  wives. 
There  is  a  general  consensus  of  opinion  amongst  edu- 
cated men  in  India  that  widows  should  be  allowed 
to  remarry,  but  such  remarriage  on  a  large  scale  will 
be  possible  only  when  women  learn  to  assert  their 
rights  against  perpetual  widowhood.  We  would 
allow  the  members  of  each  division  of  a  caste"  — 
only  that,  be  it  noted,  not  the  members  of  different 
castes  —  "to  intermarry,  but  there  is  no  hope  of  this 
reform,  small  as  it  is,  being  carried  into  effect  unless 
our  women  rise  to  something  like  the  intelligent 
level  we  have  ourselves  attained."  Such  was  the 
feeling  in  Madras,  the  province  most  advanced  in 
respect  of  social  reform,  and  most  backward  in 
accepting  the  Congress  political  programme. 

The  subject  of  social  reform  is  necessarily  vague, 
comprehensive,  and  ill  defined.  The  Indian  masses, 
it  has  never  been  denied,  are  fulfilled  with  the  con- 
viction that  the  social  customs  and  institutions  which 
have  so  long  stood  the  test  of  time  possess  peculiar 
merit,  and  are  superlatively  well  adapted  to  their 

241 


INDIA 

own  requirements.  The  masses  in  this  behalf  include 
all  Hindoos  who  are  not,  and,  off  the  platform, 
a  great  many  of  those  who  are,  English-educated. 
The  people  are  passionately  attached  to  the  simple 
faith  and  primitive  ways  of  their  forefathers;  they 
are  prepared  to  take  what  a  Brahmin  says  as  gospel, 
and  the  women,  who  are  the  most  conservative  half 
of  the  population,  exercise  the  strongest  possible 
influence  over  the  men,  though  the  true  position  in 
this  respect  has  been  obscured  and,  unintentionally 
of  course,  misrepresented,  by  interested  observers, 
whose  field  has  necessarily  been  limited  to  the  lowest 
and  most  degraded  classes. 

If  any  proofs  were  wanted  that  the  desire  for 
social  reform  had  only  touched  the  merest  super- 
ficial fringe  of  the  Indian  peoples,  it  would  be  found 
in  the  double  life  led  by  most  of  the  reformers  them- 
selves. An  ardent  radical  in  his  domestic  life  does 
the  very  things  that  in  his  public  life  he  denounces. 
He  believes  in  astrology,  marries  his  children  in 
extreme  youth,  spends  more  than  he  can  afford  on 
ceremonies,  submits  to  the  exactions  of  the  priests, 
and  in  general  conforms  to  Hindoo  standards. 

He  is  perfectly  well  aware  that  if  certain  texts  can 
be  found  in  favour  of  remarriage  of  widows,  at  least 
an  equal  number  can  be  found  to  condemn  this  prac- 
tice, and  that  custom,  which  is  the  real  arbiter,  has 
been  against  it  for  centuries. 

That  experienced  statesman,  Sir  John  Strachey, 
in  1899  wrote:  "The  people  of  India  are  intensely 
conservative,  and  wedded,  to  an  extent  difficult  for 

242 


SOCIAL    REFORM 

Europeans  to  understand,  to  every  ancient  custom, 
and  between  their  customs  and  their  religion  no  line 
of  distinction  can  be  drawn." 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  no  social  conditions 
render  it  necessary  now  that  the  community  should 
be  divided  into  sections,  with  impossible  barriers 
between  them,  for  the  four  principal  castes  do  not 
confine  themselves  in  these  days  to  their  proper 
avocations.  The  Brahmin  is  now  as  much  an  official 
as  he  was  formerly  a  priest;  the  Vaisya  as  much  a 
clerk  as  a  shop-keeper;  the  Sudra  as  much  a  peasant- 
proprietor  as  a  farm-servant,  and  the  Kshatriya, 
once  a  warrior,  is  now  anything  you  please.  Not 
only  can  no  member  of  one  intermarry  with  a  mem- 
ber of  another  of  these  castes,  but  there  are  innu- 
merable subdivisions  of  each  of  the  actual  castes,  in 
respect  of  which  the  same  disability  obtains.  Legis- 
lation, of  course,  is  powerless  to  deal  with  such  a 
situation;  if,  indeed,  legislative  interference  were 
desirable,  which  I,  for  one,  do  not  think. 

The  failure  of  the  Age  of  Consent  Act  has  proved 
that  it  is  useless  to  legislate  too  far  ahead  of  public 
opinion.  As  to  the  practice  of  infant  marriage,  the 
evils  resulting  from  it  have  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
Perverse  as  such  a  practice  appears  to  us  to  be,  its 
moral  and  social  consequences  have  not  been,  by 
any  means,  as  disastrous  as  reformers  pretend.  The 
majority  of  women  in  India  are  probably  as  happy 
as  women  elsewhere.  Custom  reconciles  to  any 
hardships,  but  such  hardships  are  the  subject  of 
habitual  and  monumental  exaggeration.  The  ordi- 

243 


INDIA 

nary  Briton  is  unable  to  understand  the  sacramental 
and  mystical  conception  of  marriage  as  a  binding 
tie  for  this  life  and  the  life  hereafter.  One  of  the 
ablest  Hindoo  judges  who  ever  sat  on  the  bench  in 
India,  Sir  T.  Muttuswami  Iyer,  "deprecated  any 
legislation  which  would  involve  an  irritating  inter- 
ference with  the  most  important  domestic  event  of 
the  majority  of  his  Majesty's  Hindoo  subjects." 
The  Hindoo  system  provides  every  woman  with  a 
husband,  and  every  man  with  a  wife,  and  if  in  Ben- 
gal, where  all  those  customs  are  most  prevalent,  21 
per  cent,  of  the  women  are  widows,  as  against  about 
one  half  that  number  in  England  and  France,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  proportion  of  unmarried  females 
is  more  than  twice  as  great  in  England  as  in  Bengal. 
It  must  also  be  remembered  that  cohabitation  or 
actual  marriage  does  not  take  place  until  the  girls 
reach  the  age  of  puberty,  the  marriage  ceremony, 
in  fact,  being  nothing  more  than  an  irrevocable 
betrothal.  Girls  must  marry  early  when  they  ma- 
ture early,  and  as  the  mean  age  for  married  women 
in  India  is  twenty-eight,  and  in  England  forty, 
there  is,  in  fact,  no  great  difference,  when  climate 
and  length  of  life  are  taken  into  account,  the  child- 
bearing  ages  in  Europe  being  fifteen  to  forty-five, 
and  fifteen  to  thirty-five  in  India. 

It  is  well  known  that  in  old  times  girls  were 
married  after  they  came  of  age,  that  remarriage  of 
widows  was  once  permitted,  and  that  there  is  no 
authority  in  the  Vedas  for  the  practice  of  suttee. 
Nor  in  very  early  times  did  the  system  of  caste 

244 


SOCIAL    REFORM 

prevail,  for  it  was  developed  towards  the  end  of  the 
Vedic  period,  and  arose  immediately  from  the  fact 
that  all  class  occupations  were  hereditary.  Soon 
the  smallest  difference,  as  regards  trade,  profession, 
or  practice,  became  enough  to  lead  to  the  institu- 
tion of  separate  castes,  which  are  now  some  4000 
in  number.  But,  of  course,  it  must  be  understood 
that  existing  conditions  have  obtained  for  many 
centuries,  and  that  the  Shastraic  system  is  of  purely 
antiquarian  and  academic  interest. 

It  is  one  thing  to  fall  back  upon  the  Shastras  for 
historical  light,  and  another  to  base  modern  reforms 
upon  these  ancient  texts.  They  are  worthy  of  all 
reverence,  as  they  hand  down  the  traditions  of  a 
past  civilisation,  and  no  social  reformer  can  neglect 
or  ignore  them,  but  it  should  be  manifest  that  rules 
and  observances  which  became  men  of  a  bygone  age 
cannot  suit  people  who  live  in  the  present  day,  in  dif- 
erent  circumstances  and  environments.  The  Bible, 
the  law,  and  the  prophets  can  all  be  expressed,  so  far 
as  Hindoos  are  concerned,  by  the  one  word  custom. 

Upon  the  much-debated  subject  of  social  inter- 
course, volumes  have  been  written.  The  fact  is 
that  complete  fusion,  and  intermarriage  to  any  great 
extent,  are  impossible. 

Of  all  the  Hindoos  I  have  seen  in  India  none  were 
more  Europeanised,  or  associated  more  freely  with 
Europeans,  than  the  late  Mr.  Satthianadan,  M.A., 
LL.M.,  professor  of  philosophy  at  the  Presidency 
College,  Madras.  He  and  his  wife  were  both  Chris- 
tians, who  habitually  frequented  the  society  of  the 

245 


INDIA 

English  in  the  Presidency  capital,  and  he,  as  a  high- 
caste  man,  possessed  particular  and,  among  Indian 
Christians,  rare  facilities  for  noting  the  feelings  of 
Hindoos  of  all  grades.  He  wrote:  "The  educated 
classes  claim  to  be  free  from  the  trammels  of  caste, 
but  there  is  glaring  incongruity  between  thoughts 
and  deeds,  between  public  professions  and  private 
practice.  Much  is  said  against  caste,  but  it  still 
reigns  supreme  in  some  form  or  another  even  in  the 
most  enlightened  circles.  There  is  still  absence  of 
sympathy  between  the  peoples  of  India.  They  are 
separated  by  impassable  barriers,  and,  seeing  that 
the  points  of  disparity  between  the  different  classes 
that  constitute  the  Indian  population  makejtheir 
cordial  sympathy  with  one  another  impossible,  how 
can  we  expect  the  Indian  population,  made  up  as 
it  is  of  those  motley  races,  to  mix  cordially  with 
Europeans,  a  people  entirely  different  from  them 
in  creed,  colour,  customs,  and  costume?  India  con- 
sists merely  of  a  vast  assemblage  of  races  divided 
into  countless  unsympathising  castes  and  classes.  I 
admit  that  English  education  and  Western  civilisa- 
tion have  amalgamated  to  some  extent  the  forces 
among  the  Indian  population,  but  greater  exertions 
must  be  put  forth  in  the  castes  and  classes  to  bring 
about  a  deeper  sympathy  and  more  complete  union. " 
Then  referring  to  the  Briton  he  quotes  Emerson: 
"Every  one  of  these  islanders  is  an  island  himself, 
safe,  tranquil,  and  incommunicable." 

But  while  there  can  be  no  fusion  and  intermar- 
riage, friendly  intercourse  is  by  no  means  difficult, 

246 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

provided  always  that  the  Briton  can  talk  the  Indian's 
language. 

Of  all  reasons  which  prevent  free  intercourse  the 
chief  is  ignorance  of  the  languages  on  the  part  of  the 
British.  It  is  true  that  certain  tests  are  exacted 
from  those  who  enter  the  public  service,  but  they 
are  of  a  rather  elementary  character,  and  no  sooner 
does  the  official  enter  into  his  kingdom  than  he  finds 
that  everybody  about  him  speaks  perfect  English, 
and,  though  he  does  not  know  it,  nothing  reaches 
his  ears  except  what  has  passed  through  these, 
generally  by  no  means  disinterested,  interpreters. 
The  irregular  relations  which  formerly  were  so  fre- 
quent between  Englishmen  and  the  women  of  the 
country  led  to  a  complete  acquisition  of  the  lan- 
guage in  many  cases,  but  the  number  of  English- 
women in  the  country  has  of  late  so  much  increased, 
and  any  European  having  relations  with  native 
women  is  so  relentlessly  persecuted  by  them,  and  so 
disparaged  by  his  fellow-countrymen  generally,  that 
this  approach  to  the  people  is  practically  abolished. 

The  pursuit  of  sport  is  indeed  the  only  means  of 
access  remaining,  except  for  those  choice  spirits 
who  strike  out  lines  for  themselves  regardless  of  the 
opinion  of  the  little  station  in  which  their  service  is 
for  the  most  part  passed.  The  freemasonry  of  sport 
obtains  just  as  much  in  India  as  anywhere  else.  In 
the  hunting  field  at  home  all  classes  meet  upon  an 
equal  footing,  and  this  is  very  much  the  case  in  the 
jungle.  Association  of  this  kind  leads  to  a  frank 
interchange  of  views,  and  to  mutual  self-respect  and 

247 


INDIA 

esteem.  Statements  are  often  made  that  Indians 
will  not  bring  the  gun  up  to  an  elephant,  for  instance, 
but  a  sportsman  who  has  shown  that  he  himself  is 
dependable  will  never  have  occasion  to  make  this 
complaint.  Upon  the  whole  the  wonder  is  that  men 
unarmed,  or  if  carrying  a  second  rifle  inexpert  in  its 
use,  can  be  got  so  readily  to  put  their  lives  into 
imminent  danger  to  please  a  stranger,  and  for  a 
paltry  wage. 

The  Indian  is  no  more  wanting  in  courage  than  he 
is  in  truthfulness,  but  unless  he  knows  his  man  he  is 
always  on  the  defensive,  and  is  ready  with  some, 
probably  quite  unnecessary,  wile. 

He  naturally  does  not  feel  at  home  with  a  man 
who  cannot  talk  to  him,  or,  if  he  tries,  will,  in  all 
good  faith,  very  likely  use  disrespectful  language, 
and  say  for  "you,"  "you  fellow." 

Sir  Alfred  Lyall  explains  this  matter  in  a  couple  of 
lines  as  well  as  could  be  done  in  a  volume: 

"There  goes  my  lord  the  Feringhee,  who  talks  so  civil  and 

bland, 
Till  he  raves  like  a  soul  in  Jahanum  if  I  do  not  quite 

understand. 
He  began  by  calling  me  sahib,  and  ends  by  calling  me  fool." 

It  is  indeed  true  that  want  of  knowledge  is  rooted 
in  the  want  of  sympathy.  I  cannot  see  that  there  is 
anything  whatever  in  the  plea  frequently  put  for- 
ward that  there  can  be  no  friendly  intercourse  until 
the  women  on  both  sides  frequent  the  society  of  the 
men.  Surely  there  can  be  no  friendly  intercourse 
unless  each  side  accepts  the  customs  of  the  other, 

248 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

for  which,  in  point  of  fact,  there  are  always  excellent 
reasons.  At  any  rate,  to  make  that  a  condition  on 
the  threshold  is  to  prevent  any  stepping  over  it. 
Nor  does  the  absence  of  commensality  constitute 
any  legitimate  ground  of  complaint.  So  little  is  this 
a  bar  to  social  intercourse  that  I  am  convinced  that 
any  attempt  to  break  it  down  will  set  back  such 
progress  as  has  been  made.  Table  manners  are  a 
stumbling-block  of  the  most  mountainous  character, 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  different  races  in 
Europe  abhor  the  customs  of  their  neighbours  in  this 
respect,  and  that  the  English  are  convinced  that 
they  are  the  only  clean  feeders.  Natives  of  India 
have  wholly  and  absolutely  different  standards,  and 
it  is  exceedingly  sound  policy  for  our  intercourse  to 
stop  short  at  the  table.  I  have  myself  seen  spirited 
efforts  made  to  break  down  these  barriers,  all  of 
which  were  foredoomed  to  failure.  Attempts  on 
the  part  of  Europeans  to  give  Indian  gentlemen 
refreshment  in  separate  tents  and  houses,  with  cooks 
and  attendants  of  the  proper  denomination,  have 
resulted  in  nothing  but  misunderstandings.  At  the 
first  meeting  of  the  Congress  held  in  Madras  infinite 
pains  were  taken  by  the  Governor  of  Madras  and 
his  staff  to  entertain  the  delegates,  with,  I  think, 
very  moderate  success. 

Unfortunately  it  is  a  fact  that  Europeans  who 
can  really  carry  on  a  conversation  in  the  vernacular 
languages  are  exceedingly  rare.  It  is  the  most  val- 
uable asset  a  public  servant  can  have,  but  it  is 
not  recognised  in  honours  and  promotions.  There 

249 


INDIA 

is  also,  unfortunately,  some  truth  in  the  statement, 
often  repeated,  that  the  influence  of  Englishwomen 
in  India  tends  to  widen  the  breach.  There  are,  of 
course,  many  exceptions,  but  upon  the  whole  there 
is  little  love  lost  between  Englishwomen  and  Indian 
men.  Moreover,  in  spite  of  speeches,  writings,  and 
protestations,  extremely  little  has  been  done  by  the 
natives  themselves  to  bring  about  what  is  commonly 
called  social  reform,  a  subject  as  difficult  to  define 
in  India  as  it  is  in  England.  Even  when  some  per- 
son, greatly  daring,  marries  a  widow,  he  finds  that 
he  and  his  wife  are  lightly  regarded,  if  not  absolutely 
despised,  even  by  those  who  have  actually  urged 
them  to  such  action.  Practically  nothing  has  been 
done  in  the  thirty  years  which  have  elapsed  since  first 
the  subject  was  broached,  and,  instead  of  adhering 
to  the  main  lines  as  laid  down  by  the  leaders  in  this 
behalf,  the  reformers  of  late  have  occupied  them- 
selves with  anti-nautch  demonstrations  and  endeav- 
ours to  prevent  dancing  girls  from  taking  part  in 
festivals  and  celebrations.  Women  of  this  class 
are  just  now  strongly  denounced,  and  it  is  alleged 
against  them  "that  they  have  cast  down  many 
wounded,  yea,  many  strong  men  have  been  slain  by 
them,  that  their  house  is  the  way  to  hell,  going  down 
to  the  chambers  of  death."  All  this  may  be  true, 
but  immorality,  like  everything  else  in  India,  tends 
to  become  hereditary,  and  the  position  of  the  temple 
female  attendants  no  doubt  amounts  to  a  publicly 
acknowledged  profession,  though  it  is  subject  to 
limitations,  and  is  not  on  all  fours  with  that  of 

250 


SOCIAL    REFORM 

the  ordinary  prostitute.  Objection  is  now  taken  to 
the  presence  of  these  girls  at  the  solemnisation  of 
weddings  and  on  festal  occasions,  though  their  noto- 
rious association  with  students  is  an  occasion  for 
hard  winking. 

Originally  they  were  dedicated  as  virgins  to  the 
service  of  religion,  and  they  are  now  the  handmaid- 
ens of  the  idols,  of  which  the  priests  and  other  have 
long  said  with  Horace:  "Ne  sit  ancillce  tibi  amor 
pudori."  No  doubt  this  custom  and  others  are 
open  to  objection,  but  those  who  are  busily  occupied 
in  preaching  social  reform  are  too  apt  to  lose  sight 
of  what  the  domestic  life  of  India  really  is,  and  from 
a  perusal  of  tracts  and  pamphlets  it  would  be  readily 
imagined  that  it  stood  in  urgent  and  exceptional 
need  of  drastic  reform.  No  doubt  it  is  capable  of 
improvement,  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  probable 
that  in  many  respects  it  is  superior  to  that  of  other 
countries,  and  in  few  respects  falls  below  normal 
standards.  It  would  be  extremely  difficult  to  draw 
a  picture  of  the  family  life  of  Europe,  and  it  is 
equally  difficult  to  draw  a  picture  of  the  family  life 
of  India,  but  as  a  common  Christianity  imposes 
standards  possessing  some  similarity  in  ideal,  if  not 
in  practice,  upon  all  the  inhabitants  of  Europe,  so 
the  Brahminic  or  Hindoo  system  conduces  to  the 
maintenance  among  the  many  peoples  and  races  of 
India  of  something  approaching  a  common  standard 
of  life  and  conversation,  and,  even  where  customs 
repugnant  to  Hindoo  ideals  exist,  the  scheme  on  the 
whole  will  be  found  to  be  fashioned  on  the  Hindoo 

251 


INDIA 

or  Brahminic  system.  It  is  very  difficult,  almost 
impossible,  to  distinguish  between  caste  and  Hin- 
dooism.  The  superintendents  of  the  Indian  Census 
of  1901,  who  reported  for  the  different  provinces, 
are  pretty  well  agreed,  where  they  have  to  define 
Hindooism,  in  saying  that  so  long  as  a  man  observes 
caste  rules  he  may  not  only  do  pretty  much  as  he 
pleases,  but  may  actually  offer  his  individual  wor- 
ship to  any  god  or  hero,  to  any  stick,  stone,  or 
natural  feature,  which  his  own  inclination,  or  the 
animistic  traditions  of  his  village,  has  endowed  with 
supernatural  attributes  of  a  constructive  or  destruc- 
tive character. 

An  accomplished  Bengali  gentleman,  Mr.  Ghose, 
who  published  a  life  of  the  Maharaja  Nabkissen,  a 
faithful  friend  of  the  English  in  the  days  of  Clive, 
observes  that  "there  is  no  fear  of  English  rule  going 
wrong  if  we  remember  the  principles  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria's character,  and  in  respect  of  reforms  follow 
the  English  method  of  evolution,  not  that  of  rev- 
olution."  Nevertheless,  our  Indian  legislature  has 
made  spirited  inroads  upon  the  principle  of  guaran- 
teeing to  the  natives  of  India  their  own  customs  and 
their  own  religion,  though  whenever  these  have  been 
of  a  revolutionary  character  they  have  been  still- 
born. Such,  for  instance,  has  been  the  fate  of  the 
Age  of  Consent  Act,  as  I  anticipated  in  an  article 
published  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  October, 
1890.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  in  describing  the 
domestic  life  of  a  Hindoo  family,  to  take  an  example 
from  a  characteristic  area,  and  it  is  best  to  go  to  the 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

Deccan  or  South  India,  for  there  Mohammedan  rule 
and  Mohammedan  customs  never  took  root.  Even 
in  Hyderabad  the  people  are  Hindoos,  and  the 
Nizam  and  his  Mussulman  lords  a  mere  privileged 
handful,  while  on  the  south-west  coast  there  are 
states  which  were  completely  unaffected  by  the 
Mohammedan  conquest. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning,  the  site  must  be  chosen 
and  the  house  must  be  built  according  to  caste  rules, 
in  auspicious  months;  hymns  are  chanted;  saffron, 
turmeric,  and  sandal  are  smeared  upon  the  beams; 
flowers  are  offered,  and  the  edifice  is  apostrophised 
according  to  custom  in  that  behalf  provided.  The 
house  consists  of  one  or  more  quadrangles  with  open 
courtyards,  and  a  blank  wall  generally  offers  to  the 
street.  The  kitchen  is  the  best  apartment  and  com- 
bines in  some  respects  the  characteristics  of  a  chapel 
and  a  cooking  place.  The  church  in  England  is 
often  a  small  affair  beside  the  mansion  house,  and 
the  missionary's  chapel  a  lowly  hut  beside  his  bunga- 
low, but  in  Indian  houses  no  part  should  be  higher 
than  the  kitchen,  into  which  no  person  of  a  lower 
caste  than  the  master  may  look  or  enter.  The 
other  rooms  open  upon  an  inner  verandah,  in  which 
cows  and  calves  are  stabled.  There  is  little  furni- 
ture; indeed,  that  actually  used  consists  of  a  few  pots 
and  pans,  brazen  vessels,  and  elementary  bedsteads, 
these  simple  articles  being  generally  collected  in  a 
small,  plain,  unpretentious  room.  The  married  sons 
live  under  the  paternal  roof,  and  an  extra  man  makes 
no  difference,  as  they  all  sleep  upon  the  floor,  and 

253 


INDIA 

after  all,  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  and  at  least  in 
one  capital,  men-servants  do  the  same,  or  use  the 
sofas  and  chairs.  In  the  centre  of  one  of  the  quad- 
rangles there  should  be  an  altar,  on  which  grows  a 
shrub  of  holy  basil.  Suppose  the  owner  to  be  a 
Brahmin,  and  already  installed,  he  must  rise  before 
the  sun  and  repeat  texts  from  the  puranas.  I  give 
one,  and  have  translated  it,  as  I  have  others  quoted, 
for  the  benefit  of  such  as  require  a  translation: 

"Rama,  thou  givest  all  good  things, 
Who  but  thyself  deliverance  brings  ? 
Thee  with  one  voice  we  all  adore, 
Ah!  let  me  praise  thee  more  and  more." 

Then  comes  the  rinsing  of  the  mouth,  washing  of 
the  feet,  cleansing  of  the  teeth  with  a  particular  kind 
of  stick  never  again  used,  then  the  bath,  prayers, 
oblations  to  the  sun,  and  the  fixing  of  the  caste 
marks  upon  the  now  purified  person,  the  salutations 
north,  south,  east,  and  west,  and  the  repetition  of 
the  sacred  Sanscrit  text: 

"Hail  earth  and  sky  and  heaven,  hail  kindly  light, 
Illuminator  of  our  purblind  sight." 

Before  the  midday  meal  there  are  more  prayers, 
ablutions,  and  offerings,  and  then  the  male  members 
sit  on  the  floor  and  eat  their  rice  or  other  grain,  with 
pickles  or  condiments,  off  plates  of  plantain  or  other 
leaves.  Food  is  eaten  with  the  hand,  and  water  is 
poured  into  the  mouth,  so  that  neither  the  vessel 
nor  the  fluid  touches  the  lips.  There  are  prayers 
again  at  supper-time,  which  comes  at  sundown  in  the 

254 


SOCIAL    REFORM 

simple  healthy  life  of  the  Indian  villager,  but  the 
perpetual  prayers  and  ceremonies  are  capable  of 
some  abbreviation.  No  one  goes  to  the  temple  for 
service  as  we  go  to  church,  but  worship  is  performed 
daily  by  the  official  priest,  just  as  Mass  is  served  in 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  upon  holidays  and  festivals 
the  people  collectively  adore  the  gods.  As  for  the 
females,  it  will  suffice  if  they  worship  their  husbands, 
which  is  their  actual  duty,  and  they  are  pretty  well 
occupied  with  bearing  and  rearing  children  and  with 
their  domestic  duties,  and  are  probably  not  inferior 
in  domestic  virtues  to  any  in  the  world. 

It  may  be  fairly  said  of  a  Hindoo  woman,  "that 
the  heart  of  her  husband  doth  safely  trust  in  her, 
that  she  rises  while  it  is  yet  night,  and  gives  meat  to 
her  household,  that  she  stretcheth  out  her  hand  to 
the  poor,  and  reacheth  out  her  hand  to  the  needy, 
that  she  looks  well  to  the  ways  of  her  household,  and 
eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness,  that  her  children 
rise  up  and  call  her  blessed,  and  her  husband  praiseth 
her." 

She  is  hard  at  work  all  day,  and,  in  the  cultivating 
classes,  helps  in  the  field.  At  night,  when  the  lamps 
are  lit,  she  makes  obeisance  to  the  god  of  fire,  saying, 
if  the  translation  be  accepted: 

"This  flame  proceeds  from  God  above, 
This  lamp  is  lit  by  heavenly  love, 
So  praise  we  when  each  night  begins 
The  flame  which  burns  away  our  sins." 

Much  the  same  ceremonial  may  be  seen  any  day 
in  a  Russian  village,  where  the  peasant  bows  him- 

255 


INDIA 

self  before  the  eikon  and  the  lamp  in  the  angle  of  the 
wall,  and,  like  the  Hindoo,  he  too  knows  that  he  is, 
and  that  no  one  else  is,  orthodox. 

There  appears  to  be  some  doubt  as  to  whether  the 
good  deeds  of  the  husband  and  wife  are  transferable, 
but  it  seems  certain  that,  after  her  husband's  death, 
she  can  hasten  his  final  absorption  into  beatitude  by 
her  prayers  and  penance,  which  is  very  much  like  the 
doctrine  of  the  elder  branch  of  the  Christian  Church. 

In  the  lower  castes,  of  course,  where  the  worship 
is  rather  demonolatry  or  animism,  the  daily  ritual 
amounts  to  little  more  than  an  obeisance  to  the  sun 
in  the  morning  and  to  the  lamp  at  night. 

There  is  no  consciousness  during  one  life  of  a 
former  existence,  and  the  average  Hindoo  troubles 
himself  little  about  religion,  but  very  much  about 
caste. 

Hindoos  are  divided  amongst  themselves  into 
non-dualists,  who  believe  nothing  has  any  real  sepa- 
rate existence  from  the  one  God;  dualists,  who  hold 
that  the  human  soul  and  the  material  world  have  a 
distinct  existence,  and  the  non-dualists,  who  never- 
theless ascribe  to  the  deity  a  twofold  aspect:  the 
supreme  spirit  the  cause,  and  the  material  universe 
the  effect.  All  this  is  to  us  as  real  as  the  difference 
between  the  0/10  and  the  o/xoidovcna,  and  among  the 
Hindoos  common  folk  are  content  to  worship  Siva 
or  Vishnu,  whose  outward  and  visible  signs  are 
respectively  the  horizontal  line  and  the  trident  on 
the  forehead. 

Now  had  Christian  missionaries  been  content  that 

256 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

converts  should  retain  these  marks,  the  top-knot,  and 
other  signs  and  observances  of  caste,  Christianity 
might  have  made  more  way  in  India.  The  Catho- 
lics once  had  a  fair  hope  of  the  wholesale  conversion 
of  the  extreme  south,  where  they  actually  brought 
over  high-caste  natives,  until  the  controversy  known 
as  that  of  the  Malabar  rites  was  decided  against, 
what  was  held  to  be,  trifling  with  idolatry.  It  is 
too  late  now,  even  if  another  policy  were  adopted, 
for  Christianity  and  low  caste  have  become  once 
and  forever  inextricably  associated. 

All  Indian  questions  are  caste  questions.  No  Eng- 
lishman who  had  turned  Hindoo  would  be  accepted 
as  an  authority,  even  by  Hindoos,  regarding  the 
religious  and  social  characteristics  of  the  people  he 
had  forsaken,  but  here  in  England  the  authorities 
accepted  by  the  public  and  the  press  are  almost 
invariably  those  who,  having  been,  have  ceased  to 
be  Hindoos,  or,  having  a  special  mission  to  con- 
vert Hindoos,  are  naturally  not  impressed  with  such 
evidence  as  tends  to  show  that  Hindoos  stand  in 
no  need  of  conversion.  Yet  an  ancient  civilisation 
and  a  faith  professed  by  hundreds  of  millions  are 
entitled  to  respectful  treatment,  and  the  law-abiding 
—  for  with  the  exception  of  one  class  the  Hindoos 
deserve  the  epithet  —  to  an  unprejudiced  judgment. 
Yet  I  have  seldom  heard  other  than  misrepresenta- 
tion on  the  platform  in  this  country  of  the  domestic 
life  and  the  character  of  the  people. 

It  has  already  been  recorded  in  regard  to  Hindoo 
marriages,  the  evils  of  which  have  been  so  enor- 

257 


INDIA 

mously  exaggerated,  that  the  actual  marriage  cere- 
mony is  no  more  than  a  binding  betrothal,  and  it 
may  amuse  the  reader  to  quote  from  the  venerable 
Institutes  of  Manu  the  following  advice: 

"Let  a  man  not  marry  a  girl  with  reddish  hair  or 
deformed  limbs,  nor  one  troubled  with  sickness,  nor 
troubled  with  too  much  or  too  little  hair,  nor  one 
immoderately  talkative."  Polyandry  is  not  much 
practised  in  India,  and  it  may  be  worth  mentioning 
that  the  Nairs  of  the  Malabar  coast  are  not  polyan- 
drous,  for  though  their  system  allows  a  woman  to 
change  her  husband,  she  is  not  permitted  to  have 
more  than  one  at  a  time.  The  instincts  of  the  Hin- 
doo are  monogamous,  and  he  rarely  takes  a  second 
wife,  unless  the  first  has  no  male  issue,  when  the  para- 
mount religious  necessity  for  having  a  son  to  per- 
form his  funeral  sacrifices  renders  obligatory  either 
a  second  wife  or  an  adoption. 

The  marriage  ceremonies  are  long,  complex,  and 
costly,  and  eating,  drinking,  and  presents  are  not 
wanting.  The  question  is  asked  and  answered,  but 
the  garments  are  tied  together  in  the  place  of  the 
presentation  of  a  ring,  the  exact  counterpart  of  which 
is  a  gold  ornament  fixed  around  the  neck.  Rice  is 
thrown  over  the  newly  wedded,  just  as  it  is  with 
us;  hymns,  feasting,  and  processions  follow,  and  the 
bride,  who  in  the  case  of  respectable  families  is  never 
of  a  marriageable  age,  returns  to  her  parents'  house 
to  await  the  arrival  of  womanhood.  Though  in 
many  respects  these  marriages  resemble  our  own, 
there  is  no  wine,  of  course,  and  the  feasting  is  vege- 

258 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

tarian  in  character,  for  the  upper  classes  never  drink 
wine  nor  eat  meat  unless  they  have  received  an 
English  education.  The  lower  classes  may  enjoy 
flesh  and  liquor,  but  they  must  and  do  approximate 
to  the  standards  of  their  betters  if  they  wish  to 
obtain  the  respect  of  the  public.  Pariahs,  who  are, 
of  course,  a  caste,  though  a  low  one,  eat  flesh,  and 
that  which  they  do  eat  is  generally  carrion,  since  the 
cow  is  sacred,  goats  are  wanted  for  their  milk,  and 
animals  generally  are  too  expensive  to  be  slaugh- 
tered. Those  who  have  lived  in  Indian  villages  will 
readily  understand  the  feelings  with  which  the 
upper  classes  regard  the  flesh-eaters,  who  are,  it 
must  be  admitted,  in  all  respects  infinitely  their 
inferiors. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  because  they  are  not 
eaten,  that  animals  are  always  kindly  treated.  True, 
the  Jains,  who  are  a  handful,  maintain  hospitals 
for  sick  and  wounded  creatures,  but  bullocks  and 
horses  exist  in  conditions  which  would  give  the 
S.P.C.A.  a  little  work,  though  the  interference  of 
such  societies  is  to  be  strongly  deprecated,  as  an 
agency  foreign  to  the  ideas  of  the  people  and  prac- 
tising that  interference  with  their  domestic  life  which 
they  strongly  and  very  naturally  resent  at  the  hands 
of  strangers.  Yet  the  Hindoos  give  their  cattle  a 
rest  and  a  feast  at  the  New  Year  festival,  and  on  other 
proper  occasions,  and  make  offerings  to  the  King  of 
the  Snakes,  whose  worship,  in  one  form  or  another, 
and  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  prevails  all  over  India. 

Though  no  wine  is  drunk  except  by  those  who  have 

259 


INDIA 

learnt  English  habits,  it  is  not  the  case  that  the 
British  introduced  alcohol  into  India,  where  intox- 
icating drinks  have  always  been  known  and  used; 
such  use,  however,  except  among  the  English  edu- 
cated, being  confined  to  the  lower  classes  and 
regarded  as  disgraceful  and  degrading.  Temperance 
is  as  distinctly  a  characteristic  of  the  Hindoos  as 
tolerance,  and  in  both  respects  they  are  an  example 
to  the  nations  of  Europe.  Notwithstanding  the 
evidence  of  M.  Meredith  Townsend  to  the  contrary 
effect,  Hindoos,  besides  dinner  and  supper,  have  a 
light  early  breakfast  of  cold  rice  or  cakes.  Tea- 
planters  hope  that  at  some  future  time  tea  drinking 
will  become  universal  in  India  —  a  consummation 
most  devoutly  to  be  desired,  because  the  drinking  of 
tea  involves  the  boiling  of  water,  and  would  in  India, 
as  it  does  in  China,  preserve  the  people  from  malarial 
fever,  which,  and  not  cholera  or  plague,  is  the  real 
scourge  of  the  continent.  The  Government  should 
spare  no  pains  to  push  tea  drinking,  and  it  is  to  the 
credit  of  Lord  Curzon  that  he  did  help  the  planters, 
too  little  encouraged  in  the  past,  to  sell  their  salu- 
brious leaf  in  the  country  of  its  origin. 

Travellers  are  allowed  a  good  deal  of  license  as 
regards  caste  rules,  which  really  are  the  most  reason- 
able in  the  world,  elastic  where  they  cannot  be  kept, 
and  rigid  where  they  can.  Everywhere,  however, 
wayfarers  are  helped,  and  to  assist  the  son  of  the 
road,  as  Sadi  calls  him,  is  a  religious  duty. 

To  quote  again  from  my  translation,  in  the  Insti- 
tutes of  Manu  it  is  written: 

260 


SOCIAL    REFORM 

"Who  sends  the  stranger  hungry  from  his  door 
That  stranger's  sins  are  added  to  his  score; 
Who  entertains  a  stranger,  though  his  sins 
Are  red  as  scarlet,  he  salvation  wins." 

Many  ceremonies  attend  the  dead  as  well  as  the 
living,  and  the  sick  man  in  his  last  moments  is  carried 
from  his  bed  to  lie  upon  the  earth  or  beside  the  river. 
Thus  the  house  avoids  pollution,  and  nothing  can 
pollute  the  sacred  stream  or  holy  mother  earth.  The 
chief  mourner,  whose  claim  is  decided  for  the  same 
reasons  as  obtain  among  ourselves,  performs  the 
sacrifices  before  the  body  is  borne  to  the  funeral 
pyre,  made  up  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  the  poor,  by 
contributions  of  a  few  sticks  from  neighbouring 
houses.  He  walks  three  times  round  the  blazing  fire 
carrying  a  pot  of  water,  which  finally  he  dashes  on 
the  ground:  "Thus  the  pitcher  is  broken,  and  the 
dust  returns  to  earth  as  it  was."  Some  castes,  of 
course,  bury  their  dead,  and  all  do  in  certain  excep- 
tional cases.  Ceremonies  are  less  elaborate  with  the 
lower  castes,  and  the  same  distinction  applies  to 
the  periodical  rites  for  deceased  ancestors.  As  a 
result  of  these  prayers  and  ceremonies,  the  spirits  of 
the  departed  are  provided  with  a  temporary  body, 
while  without  such  they  would  wander  about  as 
malignant  ghosts. 

v  v    »  £     \  »     *        J      '  j     j    » 

r)  /ecu  etotuAov  arap  <p/>ev€s  ov/c  evi 


Next  the  temporary  body  is  changed  for  the  ethi- 
cal envelope  and  passes  into  the  ancestral  heaven, 
there  to  remain  until  absorbed,  or,  as  is  more  widely 

261 


INDIA 

held,  receives  judgment  according  to  its  works  in 
this  world,  being  reborn  after  a  longer  or  shorter 
period  spent  in  the  purgatorial  heaven  or  hell,  to 
accomplish  again  a  mortal  life  in  another  guise,  until 
at  length  it  qualifies  for  nirvana,  or  absorption  into 
the  Divine  essence,  for  the  Hindoos  also  believe  that 
each  soul  is  divinoB  particula  aurce.  They  acknowl- 
edge likewise  a  Supreme  Being,  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  and  the  necessity  for  and  the  existence  of 
another  life  in  which  sin  and  virtue  meet  with  their 
reward. 

In  the  Sama  Veda  the  typical  man  of  sin  is 
described.  His  head  is  Brahmin  murder,  his  eyes 
liquor  drinking,  his  face  theft,  tutor  slaying  his  ears, 
woman  killing  his  nose,  cow  destroying  his  shoulders, 
adultery  his  chest,  oppression  his  stomach,  while 
smaller  sins  are  otherwise  distributed  about  his  per- 
son. He  is  black,  which  of  course  the  upper  classes  of 
the  Hindoos  are  not,  as  indeed  Hindoos  of  any  class 
seldom  are,  and  he  is  bright-eyed  and  malevolent. 
In  the  Institutes  of  Manu  the  body  is  otherwise  de- 
scribed, and  if  I  may  again  translate,  in  this  wise: 

"Bones  are  its  rafters  and  its  beams, 
Tendons  and  nerves  its  scores  and  seams, 
Blood  is  its  mortar,  and  the  skin, 
Frail  covering,  roofs  the  mansion  in. 
Its  occupants  are  age  and  woe, 
Death  and  decay,  as  sure  as  slow; 
Right  gladly  should  the  vital  spark, 
The  soul,  renounce  a  home  so  dark. 
Birds  at  their  pleasure  quit  the  tree, 
Who  leaves  the  world  alone  is  free." 
262 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

This  is  a  melancholy  picture,  but  is  the  Hindoo 
home  melancholy?  By  no  means,  nor  are  Hindoo 
women  miserable.  Their  lives  are  made  up  of  light 
and  shade,  like  those  of  other  races,  nor  have  they 
less  of  light.  Miss  Bhor,  a  talented  Mahratta  lady, 
wrote  of  Bombay:  "In  those  parts  of  Western 
India,  where  the  Mohammedan  invasion  very  slightly 
affected  the  old  Hindoo  customs,  the  Brahmins  and 
other  high  castes  neither  veil  themselves  nor  live  in 
seclusion,  and  have  as  merry  a  time  as  the  men." 
This  of  course  is  equally  true  of  South  India,  and  of 
all  parts  of  the  continent  wherein  the  Mohammedans 
did  not  settle  in  strength.  In  all  such  regions,  and 
they  are  far  the  greater  part,  though  they  do  not  in- 
clude the  great  cities  visited  by  travellers,  women 
wear  no  veils  and  suffer  no  seclusion,  but  freely  live 
and  move  and  have  their  being.  Of  child  marriages 
the  same  writer  says:  "The  Hindoo  system  is  bad,  but 
it  is  worked  out  on  the  whole  in  a  kindly  and  sensible 
fashion.  Marriages  turn  out  happily  much  oftener 
than  might  be  thought  possible  under  such  circum- 
stances, and  as  regards  child  widows,  in  the  working 
out  of  this  iron  caste  system  there  is  much  real 
heart  and  tenderness,  which  soften  its  cruel  decrees." 

Colonel  Meadows  Taylor,  one  who  knew  the  Hin- 
doos if  ever  any  one  did,  said:  "They  are  as  courteous 
and  intelligent  a  people  as  any  in  the  world,  kind  to 
their  children,  respectful  to  their  parents,  charitable, 
honest,  and  industrious,  and  with  such  vices  as  are 
common  to  human  nature."  He  denied  that  they 
were  untruthful,  and  saw  in  caste  the  means  of 

263 


INDIA 

enforcing  the,  at  least  outwardly,  moral  conduct  of 
its  members. 

In  like  manner  Mr.  R.  C.  Dutt,  when  he  leaves  the 
company  of  the  English-educated  agitators,  testifies 
to  the  "  dislike  and  distrust  the  people  of  India  have 
of  the  rapid  introduction  of  modern  Western  meth- 
ods. Their  dislike  to  the  alienation  of  their  chiefs 
and  rajahs,  who  cease  to  live  and  move  among,  and 
become  strangers  to,  their  own  people.  There  is  not 
on  the  whole  earth  a  more  frugal  and  more  con- 
tented peasantry." 

Some  day  Mr.  Dutt,  who  wields  the  pen  of  a 
ready  writer,  will  explain  how  such  a  people  can  be 
ground  down  by  the  misgovernment  of  aliens,  and 
how  the  association  of  their  chiefs  and  rajahs  in  the 
government,  which  is  now  proposed  by  Mr.  Morley 
and  Lord  Minto,  can  be  other  than  grateful  to  the 
people  whose  characteristics  he,  on  this  occasion  at 
least,  so  faithfully  describes. 

Abbe  Dubois,  than  whom  no  European  ever  knew 
India  better,  but  who  takes,  I  think,  an  unduly 
unfavourable  view  of  the  character  of  the  people  of 
Mysore,  writes:  "Animated  in  this  behalf  by  the 
purest  and  noblest  sentiments,  Hindoos  consider  a 
man  happy  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  his  chil- 
dren, which  are  the  blessings  of  his  house." 

Sir  Thomas  Munro,  Sir  Joseph  Fayrer,  Sir  James 
Malcolm,  Sir  William  Sleaman,  and  a  host  of  wit- 
nesses have  testified  to  the  many  and  exceeding 
great  merits  of  the  Hindoo  character,  and  with  all 
they  say  I  would,  as  one  who  spent  a  quarter  of 

264 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

a  century  in  learning  their  languages  and  living 
amongst  them,  most  heartily  associate  myself,  while 
compelled,  in  justice  to  a  people  I  respect  and  admire, 
to  repudiate  altogether  the  descriptions  of  them 
given  by  those  who,  for  personal  or  political  rea- 
sons, persistently  and  perpetually  misrepresent  them. 
The  Dewan,  or  chief  minister  of  Travancore,  which 
the  Census  shows  to  be  absolutely  the  most  edu- 
cated, as  it  is  the  most  beautiful  and  most  prosper- 
ous, region  in  India,  writes:  "The  Hindoo  home  is 
founded  on  religious  principles,  the  father  is  guar- 
dian, preceptor,  and  patriarch,  the  woman  is  pro- 
tected by  her  male  relations,  nor,  looking  at  other 
countries  where  celibacy  is  practised  by  women,  can 
I  consider  universal  marriage  altogether  a  curse." 
This  is  true  enough,  and  I  remember  what  a  Hindoo 
judge  of  one  of  the  Indian  High  Courts  said,  speak- 
ing of  the  difference  in  the  law  as  regards  adultery, 
which  in  India  is  a  criminal  offence.  He  thought 
"the  exigencies  of  modern  European  society"  hardly 
allowed  of  a  similarly  severe  view  being  taken  in 
Europe  of  what  the  Hindoos  regarded  as  a  serious 
crime. 

The  same  Dewan  of  Travancore  wrote,  and  Heaven 
knows  how  truly:  "There  is  great  misapprehension 
amongst  European  nations  regarding  the  purdah,  in 
which  there  is  no  slavery  or  tyranny,  but  as  families 
rise  in  the  world  their  females  ask  for  the  privileges 
of  the  zenana  system." 

Then  Mr.  Crooke,  who  takes  a  very  high  place 
amongst  those  few  who  are  qualified  not  by  plat- 

265 


INDIA 

form  orations  or  political  agitation,  but  by  personal 
knowledge  of  Hindoo  life,  particularly  in  Northern 
India,  writes:  "The  Northern  Indian  peasant's  life 
is  one  of  ceaseless  toil,  but  it  enforces  industry  and 
temperance,  and  is  compatible  with  a  ready  cheeri- 
ness  which  can  find  amusement  in  the  veriest  trifles. 
It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  the  wife  of 
the  peasant  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  drudge. 
Nothing  in  the  house  is  done  without  her  knowl- 
edge and  advice,  and  she  is  not  perhaps  worse  off 
than  her  sister  in  a  similar  grade  in  other  parts  of 
the  world." 

It  is  curious  to  find  Abbe  Dubois  at  the  beginning, 
and  Mr.  Crooke  at  the  end  of  last  century,  during 
the  course  of  which  no  two  men  probably  knew  India 
better,  saying  in  almost  identical  words  that  to 
imagine  that  the  State  can  permanently  improve 
the  condition  of  the  depressed  classes  is  the  dream 
of  an  enthusiast.  Even  a  reduction  in  expenditure 
and  a  respite  from  perpetual  increases  of  adminis- 
trative charges  for  the  furtherance  of  progress  in 
Western  civilisation,  whether  needed  or  not,  whether 
acceptable  or  not,  whether  suitable  or  not,  would 
hardly  affect  the  lowest  classes  to  any  great  extent. 
For  they  do  not  now  groan  under  an  excessive  salt- 
tax  and  a  grinding  land  assessment.  As  has  been 
shown  in  previous  chapters,  these  are  immemorial 
imposts  which  the  British  Government  has  pro- 
gressively and  enormously  reduced.  Had  they  done 
less  in  the  way  of  reduction  and  rigidly  abstained 
from  ever  levying  a  new  tax  their  popularity  would 

266 


SOCIAL   REFORM 

have  been  greater,  and  there  would  have  been  less 
occasion  for  the  enemy  to  blaspheme.  At  present, 
although  the  total  collected  is  less,  it  is  impossible 
to  deny  that  there  are  new  cesses  and  taxes,  the 
inventions  of  the  foreigner. 

It  is  necessary  to  realise  what  the  domestic  life  of 
the  Hindoos  actually  is,  before  considering  what 
steps  should  be  taken  to  reform  it,  though  such  hesi- 
tation would  not  be  tolerated  by  ardent  and  pro- 
fessional reformers,  who  would  first  of  all  abolish, 
and  then  study  any  customs  which  came  within 
their  restless  and  disturbing  orbit.  Nothing  for 
instance  is  further  from  the  fact  than  the  assumption, 
universal  in  this  country,  that  ladies  behind  the 
purdah  —  who  are  ignorantly  presumed  to  be  the 
majority  of  the  women  of  India  —  are  universally 
ill  treated. 

How  many  a  missionary  or  another  has  stood  up 
in  England  and  said:  "I  returned  and  considered  all 
the  oppressions  which  are  done  under  the  sun,  and 
beheld  the  tears  of  such  as  were  oppressed,  and  on 
the  side  of  their  oppressors  there  was  power,  and 
they  had  no  comforter."  But  hear  on  the  other  side 
Mr.  Kipling:  "Even  purdah  women  have  always 
been  in  touch  with  a  thousand  outside  interests,"  or 
Mr.  Crooke:  "Women  exert  a  wide  influence  and 
control,  whether  within  or  without  zenanas,  and 
little  that  goes  on  outside  escapes  their  ears."  Nor 
are  they  neglected  by  the  Government,  for  they  have 
in  many  cases  special  legal  guardians  in  the  Court 
of  Wards.  Mr.  Dutt,  too,  writes:  "Purdahs  prevail 

267 


INDIA 

chiefly  in  the  towns  of  Northern  India,  where  the 
rule  of  the  Moslems  remained  for  centuries." 

Mr.  S.  E.  J.  Clarke,  a  man  intimately  acquainted 
with  Hindoo  life,  writes  of  Bengal:  "Women  of  the 
labouring  and  agricultural  classes  move  freely  about. 
Girls  are  by  precept,  instruction,  example,  and  dis- 
cipline taught  a  high  ideal  of  womanhood.  Even 
purdah  women  go  on  pilgrimage,  entertain  and  visit 
their  friends,  and  see  a  great  deal  of  the  outer  world. 
I  deny  that  Hindoo  women  necessarily  have  a  miser- 
able life,  and  must  bear  testimony  to  the  happy 
side."  Mr.  Crooke  writes:  "There  is  an  utter  lack 
of  seclusion  except  for  women  of  the  higher  classes," 
who,  as  has  been  said,  insist  on  it  as  an  honour  due 
to  their  rank. 

Everything  tends  to  obscure  the  facts  on  this  sub- 
ject. For  instance,  the  success  of  Lady  Dufferin's 
Fund,  which  has  been  great,  and  to  which  I  endeav- 
oured in  humble  fashion  to  contribute,  has  not  been 
chiefly  amongst  purdah  women.  The  Amrita  Bazaar 
Patrika  wrote:  "There  is  no  objection  whatever  on 
the  part  of  Hindoo  or  Mohammedan  ladies  to  be 
treated  by  male  doctors "  —  and  this  is,  of  course,  a 
fact.  A  Hindoo  lately  wrote  a  book,  called  "Kama- 
la's  Letters,"  in  which  one  of  the  female  characters 
says:  "Purdah  does  not  exist  in  Hindoo  society 
except  when  wealth  holds  despotic  sway.  Where 
elsewhere  it  is  found,  it  is  due  to  the  new  products 
of  English  education,  who,  rising  in  rank  and  posi- 
tion under  false  notions,  have  taken  to  it." 

The  same  writer  adds: 

268 


"Though  it  is  the  policy  of  our  rulers  not  to 
interfere  in  our  social  and  religious  matters,  it  seems 
to  me  they  do  so  when  they  choose.  Much  in  our 
system  which  may  appear  unreasonable  and  intol- 
erable cannot  be  altered  without  interfering  with  the 
very  character  of  our  social  fabric.  There  is  no 
commoner  fad  of  the  hybrid  products  of  English 
education  than  their  twaddle  about  the  cruelty  of 
caste." 

The  writer  is  believed  to  be  a  Brahmin  of  great 
attainments  and  high  position  in  the  South  of  India. 

Amongst  the  Mohammedans  the  case  as  regards 
seclusion  is,  of  course,  different,  but  even  with  them 
the  whole  question  is,  and  always  has  been,  and  no 
doubt  always  will  be,  the  subject  of  monumental 
misrepresentation. 

The  extent  to  which  Christian  teaching  has  af- 
fected Hindoo  domestic  life  can  hardly  be  regarded 
as  great.  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  protested  against 
"the  denationalisation  so  general  amongst  native 
converts,  who  abandon  the  manners  and  customs  of 
their  country,  forgetting  that  Christ  was  an  Asiatic." 

Miss  Noble,  who  has  become  a  Hindoo  and  has 
written  interesting  and  valuable  books  concerning 
her  new  co-religionists,  is  as  good  an  authority  upon 
Hindoo  social  life  as  Indian  writers  who  have  become 
Christians,  and  she  says:  "From  my  own  experience, 
I  can  refute  the  charges  of  oppression  of  Indian 
women  often  levelled  against  the  Hindoos.  Such  a 
crime  is  less  common  and  less  brutal  in  India  than 
in  younger  countries.  Indian  national  customs  need 

269 


INDIA 

no  apology."  That,  I  confess,  is  my  own  view,  but, 
as  has  been  pointed  out,  thirty  years  ago  all  the 
English-educated  were,  by  profession,  at  any  rate, 
reformers,  though  during  the  last  seventeen  years  a 
strong  Hindoo  revival  has  set  in,  the  force  of  which 
is  not  yet  spent.  It  is  not  for  us  to  take  any  excep- 
tion to  this  change  of  front,  though  it  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  reformers  soon  realised  the  hopelessness 
of  attempting  to  obtain  the  sympathy  of  the  masses 
on  any  other  terms,  and  we  may  well  say,  as  the 
Novoe  Vremya  wrote  of  the  Russians  in  China:  "We 
are  strong  in  these  regions  in  proportion  as  we  do  not 
interfere  with  the  religious  convictions  of  the  native 
population. " 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  which  Dr.  Bhandarkar  amongst 
others  has  noticed,  that  the  caste  and  race  spirit 
seems  to  increase  with  the  spread  of  education,  which 
indeed  the  agitators,  with  accustomed  exaggeration, 
say  has  produced  a  solid  Hindoo  nationality,  spread- 
ing from  the  Himalayas  to  Cape  Coranum,  and  from 
Kurachi  to  Chittagong. 

The  doctor  says:  "In  my  early  days  all  classes 
joined  in  a  public  movement.  Now  Hindoos,  Mo- 
hammedans, and  Parsees  act  independently,  as  do 
even  separate  castes.  There  is  greater  estrangement 
than  existed  before  social  reform  was  thought  of." 
Significant  proof  of  strength  of  Hindoo  feeling  was 
afforded  when  the  lawyer  and  Babu  classes  of 
Southern  India  tried  in  vain  to  rush  through  the 
Legislative  Council  the  Gains  of  Learning  Bill, 
which  would  have  proved  a  powerful  solvent  of  the 

270 


SOCIAL    REFORM 

caste  system  and  of  the  Hindoo  home  with  its  joint 
earnings. 

Abbe  Dubois  believed  caste  "to  be  the  best  part 
of  Hindoo  legislation,  solely  owing  to  which  India 
did  not  lapse  into  a  state  of  barbarism,  and  owing  to 
which  she  preserved  and  perfected  arts  and  sciences, 
while  other  nations  remained  in  the  same  condition." 
Eighty  years  later,  Sir  John  Strachey  urged  that 
between  castes,  customs,  and  religions  no  line  can 
be  drawn. 

Novels  regarding  Indian  life  are  now  not  infre- 
quently written,  and  generally  a  purpose  lurks  within 
the  narrative,  in  which  fact  and  theory  often  fight  a 
hard  battle.  For  instance,  Mr.  Dutt  in  his  "Lake 
of  Palms,"  an  admirable  and  most  interesting  pic- 
ture of  Bengali  life,  makes  one  of  his  Hindoo  char- 
acters say  "that  the  remarriage  of  a  widow  is  a  sin 
and  a  scandal,  a  madness  beyond  thought,"  while 
he  represents  a  pious  family  as  sanctioning  such  a 
marriage  by  the  advice  of  a  holy  man,  who  finds  no 
objection  in  the  Vedas!  Similarly  "social  boycott 
has  lost  its  horrors  in  India,"  in  spite  of  which  it 
seems  "women  of  good  birth  and  family  dare  not  ask 
the  married  widow  to  their  feasts  and  ceremonies." 

The  average  respectable  Hindoo  would  regard 
with  contempt  and  disgust  such  an  advertisement 
as  the  following,  which  is  a  fair  specimen  of  many 
which  appear  in  newspapers  favoured  by  the  agi- 
tators and  reformers:  "Wanted  —  A  young  virgin 
widow  to  be  married  to  a  bachelor  of  twenty-four,  of 
high  prospects,  fair  and  good-looking,  object  being 

271 


INDIA 

reformation.  Full  particulars  and  personal  inter- 
view, after  approval  of  photo.  Proper  party  only 
need  apply."  Enforced  widowhood,  as  Sir  Richard 
Temple  long  ago  pointed  out,  "is  not  nearly  so  gen- 
eral as  is  made  out  by  those  who  would  deduce  a 
moral  from  Indian  manners  for  the  glorification  of 
the  habits  of  the  Christian."  In  Hindustan  proper, 
perhaps  25  per  cent,  of  the  population  prohibit  and 
75  per  cent,  permit  remarriage. 

Sir  Madava  Rao,  the  famous  Indian  statesman, 
testified  to  the  same  effect.  He  was  an  advanced 
thinker  and  reformer,  though  he  died  before  reform 
became  associated  with  agitation  and  disaffection. 
He  considered  the  life  of  a  Hindoo  girl  "as  happy 
as  that  of  a  bird  or  a  bee,"  and  wrote:  "Many 
writers  on  Hindoo  social  reform  have  not  clearly 
understood  the  existing  system,  which  is  the  product 
of  long  development,  nor  accurately  compared  it 
with  other  systems,  before  underrating  the  advan- 
tages, and  exaggerating  the  disadvantages,  of  the 
Indian  system.  The  great  majority  of  the  people 
who  retain  their  religious  beliefs  and  social  usages 
would  prefer  non-representation  to  misrepresenta- 
tion, by  those  who  have  given  up  those  beliefs  and 
usages." 

These  are  words  of  profound  wisdom,  and  the  old 
statesman  might  have  added  that  his  own  people 
are  the  most  charitable  in  the  round  world. 

Not  only  do  Hindoos  support  all  their  poor  rela- 
tions, but  they  very  generally  help  pauper  scholars. 
Whether  it  is  to  the  public  advantage  that  such 

272 


SOCIAL    REFORM 

should  be  enabled  to  pursue  their  studies  is  indeed 
doubtful,  but  the  Hindoos  think  so  and  say: 

"Heaven's  gate  is  near  the  sinner 
Who  gives  the  humble  scholar  dinner." 

Nor  in  England,  at  any  rate  in  Wales,  is  a  similar 
belief  unknown. 

"  Charity  our  household  divinity "  runs  the  family 
motto  of  the  Maharajas  of  Travancore,  and  it  may 
be  said  in  varying  degree  of  all  his  Highness's  fel- 
low-countrymen. Such  charity  is  universal  and  all- 
embracing,  so  that  it  is  only  when  crops  have  failed 
over  a  large  area  for  several  successive  seasons  that 
the  Indian  Famine  Prevention  Code  is  brought  into 
operation  to  afford  that  outdoor  and  indoor  relief 
which  in  Europe  is  necessary  even  in  normal  seasons. 
Perhaps  no  trait  in  the  character  of  the  Hindoos, 
who  possess  so  many  admirable  qualities,  is  more 
attractive  than  their  charity,  but  it  must  be  admitted 
that  what  is  all-embracing  must  necessarily  be,  and 
indeed  is,  indiscriminate,  and  possibly  demoralising. 
The  able-bodied  beggar  is  relieved  as  readily  as  one 
incapacitated  from  earning  his  own  living,  and,  of 
course,  feeding  a  Brahmin  possesses  special  merits, 
no  matter  how  well  able  he  may  be  to  feed  himself. 
It  is  true  of  hundreds  of  thousands  in  India  that 
they  could  work,  but  to  beg  are  not  ashamed. 

Such  being  the  Hindoo  home,  and  such  being  its 
occupants,  few  thinking  men  will  agree  with  those 
who  maintain  that  India  needs  a  complete  upheaval, 
so  that  out  of  social  chaos  a  new  and  happier  dispen- 

273 


INDIA 

sation  may  arise.  On  the  contrary,  the  cure  for  such 
ills  as  exist  must  necessarily  be  exceedingly  slow. 
Education  must  spread  so  far  and  so  wide  that 
the  cry  for  reform  must  come  from  the  fields  and  the 
workshops  of  the  artisans,  and  not  only  from  the 
lawyer's  office  and  the  educationalist's  study.  Not 
till  then  will  <  the  time  arrive  for  sweeping  changes. 
Reforms  which  will  probably  sooner  or  later  come 
to  pass  are  these:  Intermarriage  between  subdivi- 
sions of  castes,  the  widening  of  the  circle  from  which 
husbands  and  wives  may  be  taken,  voluntary  renun- 
ciation of  the  habit  of  marrying  infants  and  of 
children  unable  to  earn  the  means  of  subsistence, 
reduction  of  expenses  in  the  celebration  of  cere- 
monies and  the  introduction  of  some  discrimination 
into  the  dispensation  of  charity.  But  without  any  of 
the  reforms  the  Hindoo  system  is  one  of  which  there 
is  little  cause  to  be  ashamed. 


274 


CHAPTER  XI 

ECONOMIC   POLICY 

ONE  cause  of  the  unrest  is  the  belief  strongly 
held  by  three-fourths  of  the  educated 
classes  that  the  economic  policy  of  the 
Indian  Government  is  radically  unsound  and  grossly 
unfair  to  India.  They  read  and  quote  Bradlaugh, 
Digby,  and  Naoroji,  and  maintain  that  the  so-called 
"drain"  to  England,  and  other  results  of  our  eco- 
nomic policy,  are  the  real  causes  of  the  poverty  of  the 
people,  of  famine,  and  indirectly  of  plague.  Here 
again  it  is  eminently  desirable  that  some  authorita- 
tive pronouncement  of  the  economic  policy  of  the 
Government  of  India  should  be  available,  a  memo- 
randum showing  what  it  is  and  what  are  its  results, 
but  none  such  exists,  and  even  those  who  desire  light 
know  not  in  what  direction  to  seek  it.  Sir  William 
Hunter,  as  usual,  is  pressed  into  the  service  of  the 
detractors  of  British  government  in  India.  Mr. 
O'Donnell  circulated  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  occasion  of  the  last  Budget  debate  a  memoran- 
dum called  "Rack  Taxing  in  Rural  India,"  in  which 
he  gave  a  sensational  quotation  from  Hunter  to  the 
effect  that  the  "Government  assessment  does  not 
leave  enough  food  to  the  cultivator  to  support  him- 

275 


INDIA 

self  and  his  family  throughout  the  year."  If  Hunter 
had  said  this  it  would  not  have  much  mattered,  for 
probably  there  has  never  been  an  Indian  civil  ser- 
vant who  spent  so  much  time  in  England  and  in 
headquarter  offices,  and  so  little  in  rural  India,  as 
he  did,  but  as  a  fact  he  said  nothing  of  the  kind.  He 
was  writing  of  a  bill  relating  to  four  districts  only  of 
one  Presidency,  and  of  these  he  said:  "The  funda- 
mental difficulty  of  bringing  relief  to  the  Deccan 
peasantry,  as  stated  by  the  special  judge  entrusted  with 
this  task,  is  therefore,"  and  then  follow  the  words 
Mr.  O'Donnell  attributes  to  him,  and  he  goes  on  to 
say:  "//  the  Government  assessment  reduces  the 
cultivator  to  this  condition,"  and  so  on.  Such  is 
quotation  for  the  purpose  of  discrediting  the  British 
Government. 

The  use  made  of  what  Sir  W.  Hunter  wrote  recalls 
another  and  far  more  serious  misrepresentation  of 
an  able  and  humane  minute  penned  by  Lord  Salis- 
bury when  Secretary  of  State  for  India.  Who  has 
not  read  in  the  works  of  the  anti-British  writers, 
"India  must  be  bled,"  the  odious  admission,  as  it  is 
called,  of  one  of  Britain's  greatest  statesmen?  Now 
Lord  Salisbury  in  1875  was  very  anxious  to  relieve 
the  Indian  cultivator  as  far  as  he  could,  and  in 
a  minute  on  the  land-tax  wrote:  "So  far  as  it  is 
possible  to  change  the  Indian  fiscal  system,  it  is 
desirable  that  the  cultivator  should  pay  a  smaller 
proportion  of  the  whole  national  charge.  It  is  not  a 
thrifty  policy  to  draw  the  mass  of  revenue  from 
rural  districts,  where  capital  is  scarce,  sparing  the 

276 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

towns,  where  it  is  often  redundant.  As  India  must  be 
bled,  the  lancet  should  be  directed  to  the  parts  where 
the  blood  is  congested  or  sufficient,  not  to  those 
which  are  already  feeble  from  want  of  it." 

Of  these  humane,  sensible,  and  statesmanlike 
words  Mr.  Dadabhai  Naoroji  makes  use  of  four, 
"India  must  be  bled."  Then  considering  for  a  mo- 
ment Mr.  Naoroji's  writings,  which  are  regarded  as 
a  kind  of  gospel  by  young  Bengal,  his  "Poverty  of 
India"  is  a  fearsome  work  of  nearly  700  pages,  writ- 
ten, as  the  Indians  say,  without  bundobast.  True, 
he  prefaces  most  of  his  indictments  by  a  profession 
of  faith  in  the  British,  but  this  expression  can  only 
be  looked  upon  like  the  Frenchman's  "Que  messieurs 
les  assassins  commengent,"  for  he  does  not  scruple 
to  say  "that  British  rule  has  reduced  the  bulk  of 
the  population  to  extreme  poverty,  destitution,  and 
degradation,  that  it  is  a  new  despotism  of  civilisa- 
tion, resembling  the  murder  effected  by  a  clever  and 
unscrupulous  surgeon,  who  draws  all  his  victim's 
blood  and  leaves  no  scar,"  and  he  does  not  hesitate 
to  describe  the  English  as  "the  most  disastrous  and 
destructive  of  the  foreign  invaders  of  India."  In 
denouncing  the  home  charges,  which,  no  doubt, 
should  be  reduced,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  to  the 
lowest  possible  figure,  he  leaves  out  of  account  the 
fact  that  without  the  home  charges  there  could  be 
no  British  Government  in  India.  He  says  nothing 
of  remittances  for  interest  on  loans  raised  for  the 
development  of  the  country  towards  which  the 
Indians  will  not  subscribe  themselves,  and  of  allow- 

277 


INDIA 

ances  for  Englishmen  who  have  spent  their  lives  and 
health  in  India.  When  he  calculates  the  loss  she 
suffers  by  the  excess  of  her  exports  over  her  imports 
he  says  nothing  of  some  of  the  most  flourishing 
countries  in  the  world,  which  in  this  behalf  are  in 
the  same  position,  or  of  the  approaching  ruin  of 
England,  as  some  folk  predict,  because  her  imports 
exceed  her  exports.  It  is  not  serious  treatment  of 
a  difficult  problem  to  add  up  the  imports  for  a  series 
of  years,  subtract  them  from  the  exports,  and  call 
the  balance  the  life-blood  drained  from  India.  The 
greater  part  of  these  charges  represent  interest  on 
capital  invested  in  our  Eastern  Empire  in  repro- 
ductive works,  to  the  great  advantage  of  that  Empire, 
and  of  its  working  classes,  and  most  of  all  of  those 
weaned  thereby  from  petty  agriculture,  to  which 
alone  the  masses  of  the  people  can  ordinarily  look 
for  a  livelihood.  It  is  difficult  to  criticise  seriously 
a  writer  who  says:  "Foreign  trade  adds  nothing  to 
the  wealth  of  the  world,  and  not  a  single  atom  of 
money  is  added  to  the  existing  wealth  of  India  by 
internal  trade."  And  what  does  this  profound 
economist  recommend  to  right  a  world  in  which 
apparently  everything  is  wrong?  The  further  em- 
ployment of  natives  in  the  public  service!  So  he 
has  got  no  further  than  the  failed  B.A.,  in  the  study 
of  economics,  and  it  is  not  wonderful  that  he  should 
be  regarded  by  that  individual  as  his  guide  in  the 
sphere  of  politics  and  economics.  Apparently  also, 
when  Indians  are  employed  in  offices  now  held  by 
European  civil  servants,  he  would,  regardless  of  the 

278 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

cost,  give  them  pay  and  pensions  at  the  rate  drawn 
by  the  alien  administrators.  Of  course  Mr.  Dadab- 
hai  Naoroji  writes  from  very  little  knowledge  of  the 
Indian  people,  he  being  himself  a  Parsee  whose  life 
has  been  spent  in  England.  Still,  it  is  extraordinary 
that  a  man  should  be  accepted  as  an  economic  author- 
ity who  does  not  see  that  the  best  hope  for  India  lies 
in  developing  her  resources;  in  encouraging  her  tea 
industry  which  pays  higher  wages  than  obtained 
before,  and  so  tends  to  raise  wages  all  round;  in 
encouraging  the  cotton  and  jute  mills,  gold  and  coal 
mines,  and  in  fact  in  developing  that  internal  and 
external  trade  which  he  thinks  adds  nothing  to  the 
wealth  of  the  nation,  but  to  which  alone  others,  no 
less  anxious  than  he  is  to  see  India  prosperous, 
look  for  the  further  improvement  of  her  patient  and 
estimable  population. 

The  case  of  the  bleeding  India  school  teems  with 
contradictions,  and  while  Mr.  Naoroji  argues  in  his 
classical  works  that  India  has  become  poorer  because 
the  prices  of  Indian  staples  have  not  risen,  and  bases 
an  immense  fabric  or  fabrication  upon  this  assump- 
tion, the  Congress  journals  cry  out  because  the  wages 
of  agricultural  and  other  labour  have  not  advanced 
pari  passu  with  the  rise  in  prices,  and  their  premise 
that  prices  have  risen  is  of  course  correct,  though 
they  suppress  the  fact,  easily  proven  by  reference  to 
old  records,  that  there  has  been  a  more  than  propor- 
tionate rise  in  the  rate  of  wages. 

Next  amongst  the  prophets  comes  (the  late)  Mr. 
William  Digby,  who  revels  in  statistics  regarding 

279 


INDIA 

the  bleeding  of  India,  and  calculates  the  amount 
extracted  by  the  economic  drain  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  the  greatest  precision,  at  £4,187,922,- 
732.  Like  Mr.  Naoroji,  he  holds  that  the  influx  of 
imports  is  of  little  or  no  value,  while  the  loss  of 
exports  is  a  fatal  wound,  and  he  describes  our  rule 
as  "naked  and  unashamed  exploitation,  outrageous 
plunder,  a  mockery  and  a  curse  to  hundreds  of 
millions  of  British  subjects."  To  prove  this  rather 
comprehensive  conclusion  he  makes  elaborate  com- 
parisons of  the  condition  of  the  natives  of  India 
with  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  European  states. 
Had  Japan,  China,  Arabia,  or  some  other  Eastern 
nation  been  taken  as  a  standard,  something  of  some 
value  might  have  been  evolved,  but  Mr.  Digby 
proves  too  much  in  showing  that  all  Indians,  for 
instance  the  powerful  Punjaubi,  a  far  finer  man  than 
the  average  Englishman,  is  habitually  starved.  He 
makes  much  use  of  the  Russian  peasant,  but  I  have 
lived  with  Russian  peasants.  I  am  a  Russian  inter- 
preter myself,  and  I  know  that  if  the  Russian  has 
ten  times  the  income  of  the  Indian,  his  board  and 
lodging  costs  him  several  times  ten  times  as  much, 
and  that  the  Indians  get  more  comfort  from  their 
smaller  resources.  Space  will  not  allow  me  here  to 
show  how  ways  and  means  in  the  East  and  West 
actually  compare  when  considered  with  elementary 
understanding,  or  to  deal  with  Indian  conditions  and 
Indian  critics  at  length  on  this  matter.  So  much 
that  is  absolutely  contrary  to  fact  is  taken  for 
granted,  such  frequent  reiteration  calls  for  such 

280 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

emphatic  refutation,  that  considerable  space  is 
required  for  overthrowing  the  structure,  albeit  it  is 
founded  on  sand. 

It  is,  however,  unnecessary  to  repeat  what  has  been 
said  in  previous  chapters  to  refute  the  argument  that 
the  British  invented  famine,  which  on  the  contrary 
they  have  almost  abolished.  Mutually  destructive 
propositions  are  as  common  as  over-confident  and 
unsupported  assertions,  and  the  numbers  habitually 
in  want  of  food  are  calculated  to  have  increased 
from  40,000,000,  itself  the  mere  conjecture  of  one 
individual  of  no  special  authority,  to  100,000,000, 
while  elsewhere  it  is  urged  that  owing  to  British 
maladministration  the  population  has  not  suffi- 
ciently increased.  Sir  Salar  Jung,  who  raised  the  land 
revenue  in  Hyderabad  by  260  per  cent.,  is  praised, 
while  the  English,  who  in  the  same  period  effected 
an  increase  of  25  per  cent.,  as  Mr.  Digby  says,  are 
condemned.  The  profits  of  the  industries  are  said 
to  go  to  English  capitalists,  but  does  Indian  labour 
take  no  toll  on  these  profits?  The  superior  merits 
of  the  administration  of  Indian  states  are  extolled, 
but  their  complete  failure  to  feed  their  people  in 
famine  days  is  suppressed. 

When  family  after  family  is  shown  to  earn  too 
little  to  support  life,  it  is  evident  to  anyone  with 
any  knowledge  of  the  country  that  the  cost  of  living 
has  been  pitched  too  high,  and  supplementary 
sources  of  income  have  been  ignored.  Then  official 
results  are  repudiated  because  based  upon  official 
figures,  but  it  is  an  irrefragable  merit  of  Digby 's 

281 


INDIA 

own  conclusions  that  they  are  based  upon  such 
figures ! 

Then  in  regard  to  Bengal,  the  permanent  set- 
tlement of  which  Mr.  Digby,  like  Mr.  Dutt  and 
Mr.  Naoroji,  is  bound  to  praise  —  for  are  not  the 
landlords  of  Bengal  the  supporters  of  the  Congress? — 
he  finds  that  in  that  province  the  average  income 
falls  most  below  the  official  estimate.  This  is  very 
likely  the  case,  though  it  would  take  a  great  deal  to 
prove,  but  if  true  it  entirely  shatters  the  creed  that 
permanently  settled  Bengal  is  exceptionally  pros- 
perous. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  a  writer  who 
ignores  the  most  elementary  principles  of  economics 
should  think  worthy  of  mention  the  legislation  for 
the  emancipation  of  the  peasant  from  the  clutches 
of  the  money-lender,  the  extension  of  irrigation,  the 
establishment  of  co-operative  agricultural  credit, 
and  the  industrial  eminence  of  Bombay.  In  point 
of  fact,  it  is  mere  clap-trap  to  say  the  average  Indian 
got  Zd.  a  day  in  1850,  ljd.  in  1880,  and  Id.  in  1900, 
and  contempt,  as  I  suppose,  has  prevented  the  Gov- 
ernment from  exposing  such  nonsense.  No  one 
knows  what  the  average  was  in  1850,  and  it  certainly 
has  not  fallen  since  1900.  The  Government  has  at 
length,  after  an  elaborate  inquiry,  found  the  average 
income  per  head  to  be  30  rupees,  and  reasons  have 
been  given  elsewhere  for  thinking  that  this  is  as 
fair  an  estimate  as  is  likely  to  be  made. 

Mr.  F.  J.  Atkinson,  whose  training  and  experi- 
ence specially  fit  him  to  deal  with  Indian  statistics, 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

calculated  that  between  1875  and  1895  the  agricul- 
tural income  increased  from  26  rupees  to  35  rupees, 
or  39  per  cent.;  the  non-agricultural  income  from 
28  rupees  to  34  rupees,  or  18  per  cent.;  and,  as  these 
two  classes  were  97  per  cent,  of  the  population,  that 
the  average  annual  income  of  the  masses  had  risen 
from  27  rupees  to  35  rupees,  or  28  per  cent.  Taking 
into  account  the  remaining  classes,  he  made  the 
income  of  all  three  sections  to  be  from  30  rupees 
to  39  rupees,  or  an  increase  in  the  average  income 
of  29  per  cent.  These  figures  are  worthy  of  great 
respect,  though  their  author  does  not  claim  for  them 
scientific  accuracy,  nor,  though  an  expert,  is  he 
capable,  like  Mr.  Digby,  of  calculating  a  century's 
drain  within  twenty  shillings.  Lord  Cromer  in 
his  day  estimated  the  average  income  at  27  rupees, 
as  against  the  30  rupees  of  Lord  Curzon's  Govern- 
ment, so  that  there  is  not,  when  the  difficulty  and 
complexity  of  the  subject  is  considered,  so  great  a 
disparity  as  might  be  expected. 

None  of  the  chief  detractors  of  British  rule  have 
explained  why,  if  the  land  is  universally  rackrented, 
it  happens  that  it  sells  for  several  times  the  assess- 
ment, of  which  there  is  proof.  Again,  it  was  the 
same  Sir  William  Hunter,  who  saw  so  little  of  life 
in  India,  who  was  so  misquoted  by  Mr.  O'Donnell,  who 
dogmatically  asserted  in  1880  that  40,000,000  of  In- 
dians went  through  life  on  insufficient  food,  an  utterly 
unsupported,  and  therefore  mischievous,  statement. 

More  light  is  thrown  upon  facts  by  one  entry  from 
Mr.  Digby's  peasants'  authentic  family  budgets 

283 


INDIA 

than  from  all  his  invective  and  bewildering  statistics. 
The  cultivator  of  4^  acres  provides  in  his  budget  an 
expenditure  "of  Sd.  a  month  for  the  small  goddess 
and  the  local  ghost."  Starving  men  do  not  spend 
much  money  on  ghosts  and  goddesses. 

Mr.  Digby  complains  that  the  British  have  drained 
away  all  the  capital.  Mr.  Justice  Ranade,  however, 
who  is  an  authority  accepted  by  the  Congress  school, 
says:  "There  is  no  lack  of  capital  in  the  country,'* 
and  if  no  Indian  can  exist  on  less  than  30  rupees  per 
head  per  annum  for  food,  which  is,  of  course,  absurd, 
how  can  Mr.  Digby  be  right  in  saying  elsewhere  that 
"they  can  exist,  if  existence  it  can  be  called,  on 
almost  nothing"?  Mr.  Digby's  figures,  in  fact,  are 
compiled  with  the  utmost  levity,  and  his  calculations 
of  the  revenue  of  India  are  based  on  the  assumption 
that  the  land  revenue  is  a  certain  proportion  of  the 
gross  produce,  which  he  lays  down  with  confidence, 
if  without  knowledge.  The  lower  the  land  revenue, 
the  poorer  the  Indian  people  must  appear,  accord- 
ing to  his  method  of  calculation.  It  would  be  easy 
to  show  that  the  agricultural  produce  of  the  country 
is  double  the  figure  at  which  he  assesses  it,  but  of 
course  it  is  not  from  statistics,  but  from  observation 
in  the  field,  that  the  condition  of  the  peasants  can 
be  really  estimated;  nor  does  Mr.  Digby  seem  to 
grasp  the  fact  that  the  ordinary  peasant  carries  on 
a  great  deal  of  his  traffic  by  barter  or  in  kind.  In 
fact,  he,  like  Mr.  Naoroji,  has  no  actual  knowledge 
of  Indian  rural  life,  which  is  not  obtained  by  editors 
whose  Indian  experience  is  confined  to  an  office  in 

284 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

the  city  of  Madras.  It  is  possible  that  Mr.  Naoroji 
may  be  acquainted  with  one  of  the  languages  spoken 
in  Bombay  other  than  English,  but  it  is  certain  he 
has  had  little  or  no  opportunity  of  using  such  knowl- 
edge in  his  life,  and  Mr.  Digby,  as  I  know,  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  vernacular  tongues. 

No  man  with  any  practical  experience  of  the 
country  would,  like  Mr.  Digby,  base  an  estimate  of 
the  wealth  of  India  upon  the  transparently  absurd 
assumption  that  the  gross  produce  of  "golden"  Ben- 
gal does  not  amount  to  £l,  or  15  rupees,  an  acre. 
Yet  this  estimate  is  accepted  in  innumerable  essays, 
articles,  and  pamphlets,  and,  like  any  stick,  is  good 
enough  for  the  British  Government. 

If  this  method  of  calculation  were  followed,  it 
would  be  easy  to  prove  that  no  person  in  England 
had  less  than  £45  a  year,  and  in  referring  to  land 
revenue  as  taxation  Mr.  Digby  ignores  altogether 
the  fact  that  where  the  land  is  held  directly  from 
Government,  the  land-tax  includes  what  here  we 
call  rent,  and  should  be  compared  with  the  total 
burden  of  the  land  in  this  country.  Mr.  O'Donnell 
repeats  the  same  error,  though  he  must  be  aware 
that  the  two  charges  are  not  in  the  same  category. 

Mr.  R.  C.  Dutt,  who  arrives  at  much  the  same 
conclusions,  is  a  critic  of  a  different  class  to  Messrs. 
Digby  and  Naoroji,  but  he  is  equally  unsparing  in 
condemnation  of  British  rule,  and  of  the  civil  service, 
of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  he,  too,  does  not 
hesitate  to  make  sweeping  statements  as  if  they 
were  facts  of  universal  acceptance. 

285 


INDIA 

For  instance:  "The  poverty  of  the  Indian  popula- 
tion is  unparalleled  in  any  civilised  country."  Upon 
what  travel  and  inquiry  is  this  statement  based,  and 
what  is  it  worth,  unless  based  upon  comparative 
knowledge?  "The  famines  of  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  are  unexampled  in  extent  and 
intensity  in  ancient  and  modern  times."  The  few 
histories  written  by  Indians  prove  this  statement  is 
altogether  contrary  to  the  fact,  and  I  have  in  previ- 
ous chapters  sufficiently  dealt  with  this  monstrous 
misstatement:  "The  finances  of  the  country  are 
not  properly  administered."  If  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  is  a  good  authority,  one  may  ven- 
ture to  quote  Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach,  who  said 
that  "the  finances  of  India  were  not  only  better 
administered,  but  in  a  more  satisfactory  condition 
than  those  of  Great  Britain."  Then,  "India  in  the 
eighteenth  century  was  a  great  manufacturing  as 
well  as  a  great  agricultural  country."  True,  she 
had  manufactures,  though  we  have  yet  to  learn 
that  she  produced  more  than  she  does  at  present, 
but  she  was  always,  and  still  remains,  mainly  agri- 
cultural. Certain  of  her  industries  were,  and  one 
industry  still  is,  in  some  respects,  subservient  to  the 
same  industry  in  Britain,  but  in  consequence  of 
British  rule  she  has  been  endowed  with  many  other 
new  industries,  which  employ  at  least  as  much 
labour.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  prohibitive 
tariffs  were  imposed  at  one  time  in  England  upon 
competing  Indian  manufactures;  but  it  is  not  in 
any  way  proved  that  the  balance  of  profit  was  not 

286 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

with  India  in  the  whole  transaction,  or  that  other 
European  races,  one  of  which  was  bound  to  acquire 
her,  would  not  have  imposed  equal  or  heavier  tariffs. 

Then  "the  land-tax  is  not  only  excessive,  but, 
what  is  worse,  it  is  fluctuating  and  uncertain  in  many 
provinces."  But,  as  has  been  shown  in  previous 
chapters,  it  is  immensely  less  than  that  collected 
by  our  predecessors  in  title.  Of  course,  Bengal  the 
permanently  settled  is  said  to  be  more  prosperous 
than  Madras  and  Bombay,  but  if  Mr.  Dutt  has  had 
any  experience  of  these  other  provinces,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  compare  conditions,  he  has  omitted  to  say 
so  in  his  book.  His  official  services,  like  those  of 
the  other  chief  supporters  of  the  Congress  in  Parlia- 
ment, were  rendered  in  Bengal,  the  home  of  the 
Congress,  and  the  place  of  origin  of  anti-British  agi- 
tation, and  he  takes  no  notice  of  the  fact  that  it 
is  in  Bengal  that  the  British  Government  has  chiefly 
had  to  intervene  to  protect  the  tenant  from  the  land- 
lord, and  he  has  never  had  the  opportunities  enjoyed 
by  civil  servants  in  other  provinces  of  seeing  the 
permanently  settled  system  and  the  ryot-wari  sys- 
tem working  side  by  side. 

He  does  not  scruple  to  say  that  "a  special  law, 
called  the  slave  law  by  the  people  of  India"  (query, 
what  people,  and  in  what  language?)  "still  exists  for 
providing  labourers  for  the  tea  planters  in  Assam, 
ignorant  men  and  women,  bound  down  by  penal 
clauses  to  work  in  tea  gardens  for  a  number  of  years, 
for  whom  the  utmost  endeavours  have  failed  to 
secure  adequate  pay."  I  was  a  member  of  the 

287 


INDIA 

Select  Committee  of  the  Legislative  Council  which 
examined  this  law,  and  from  personal  knowledge 
can  contradict  the  whole  of  this  statement,  but  per- 
haps it  would  be  sufficient  to  refer  to  the  Census 
Report,  which  exposes  this  foolish  charge.  I  have 
referred  to  the  matter  before,  and  wages  in  tea 
gardens  are  above  normal  rates,  which  this  industry 
has  thus  been  the  means  of  raising. 

Of  course  revenue  and  magisterial  functions  should 
be  separated,  but  enough  of  that  elsewhere. 

As  an  instance  of  Mr.  Dutt's  treatment  of  his- 
torical subjects  may  be  mentioned  his  account  of 
the  Black  Hole  tragedy:  "Siraj-ud-Doulah's  pris- 
oners died  one  hot  summer  night."  Now  I  do  not 
think  it  proved  that  this  tragedy  was  ordered  by 
the  Nawab,  but  this  is  a  strange  account  of  a  cruel 
outrage. 

Again,  "the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  has  not 
admitted  the  people  of  India  to  any  share  in  the 
control  and  direction  of  the  administration  of  their 
own  affairs.'* 

Elsewhere  I  have  quoted  Babu  Bepin  Chandra 
Pal  to  the  effect  that  "we,"  the  Indians,  "now  govern 
India."  The  fact  that,  except  as  regards  something 
under  one  thousand  appointments,  the  whole  public 
service  is  manned  by  natives  is  not  worth  Mr.  Dutt's 
attention.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  where 
history  taught  the  lesson  "that  it  is  impossible  to 
govern  a  country  in  the  interests  of  the  people  with- 
out bestowing  on  that  people  some  measure  of  self- 
government  and  representation."  History  teaches 

288 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

the  exactly  opposite  conclusion,  and  self-government 
and  representation  obtains  to-day  amongst  a  mere 
fraction  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  world,  nor  does 
the  system  seem  to  work  well  at  present  in  regions 
to  which  it  is  being  extended  in  Europe  and  Asia. 

The  alliance  between  the  Congress  and  the  social- 
ists in  Britain  will  be  severely  strained  if  Mr.  Dutt 
expresses  the  matured  opinion  of  the  former,  "that 
the  soil  was  private  property  in  India,  as  amongst 
all  other  civilised  nations,"  but  the  statement  is,  if 
true,  not  in  India  by  any  means  the  whole  truth. 

Mr.  Dutt's  work  teems  with  allegations  which  are 
erroneous  and  unsustainable:  "Only  those  who  pay 
light  rents  are  prosperous";  yet  the  fact  is  notorious 
that  the  districts  in  which  rents  are  lightest  have 
been  in  times  of  scarcity  most  seriously  affected,  the 
obvious  reason  being  that  there  the  land  is  poorest. 
The  Indian  cultivator  is  indeed  worthy  of  all  praise, 
but  to  single  out  his  "habits  of  prudence"  for  eulogy 
is  to  indulge  in  untimely  sarcasm. 

Mr.  Dutt's  contentions  regarding  assessments  are 
noticed  in  Chapter  III.  He  finds  that  the  extension 
of  cultivation  has  not  made  the  nation  any  more 
prosperous  —  a  position  which  can  hardly  need  seri- 
ous refutation  —  and  that  India  is  the  poorest  coun- 
try on  earth.  Has  he  then  visited  all  the  countries 
on  earth  —  and  are  statistics  in  respect  of  all  such 
available?  Has  he  compared  them  —  or  are  his 
conclusions  the  fruits  of  omniscience?  If  so  let  the 
claim  be  made,  and  then  ordinary  mortals  will  know 
how  to  deal  with  the  revelations.  Meanwhile,  like 

289 


INDIA 

any  other  Congressman,  he  combines  the  out-and- 
out  advocacy  of  democracy  and  reform  with  the 
stoutest  possible  defence  of  landlordism  and  aris- 
tocracy, at  any  rate  in  Bengal.  In  one  respect, 
however,  he  throws  over  the  tenets  of  his  school 
and  of  its  ex-official,  now  anti-official,  supporters 
and  admits  that  there  is  no  strong  feeling  in  India 
against  the  opium  monopoly. 

One  fact  to  be  remembered  in  dealing  with  the 
writings  of  Messrs.  Dutt,  Naoroji,  and  Digby  is 
this  —  that  statistics  are  wanting  for  the  first  half 
of  last  century,  that  the  first  regular  Census  was 
taken  in  1872,  and  that  the  Statistical  Department 
at  Calcutta  was  not  created  till  1880.  Never  was 
so  vast  a  superstructure  raised  upon  such  pure  con- 
jecture as  the  case  against  the  British  Government 
according  to  the  Congress,  which  now  has  the  sup- 
port of  the  British  socialists. 

The  opportunity  of  attacking  British  rule  at  a 
time  when  opposition  was  displayed  in  India  was 
too  good  for  Mr.  Hyndman  to  lose,  and  he  returned 
to  the  charge  on  his  old  war-horse,  frequently  foun- 
dered, but  still  propped  up  with  the  same  bad  argu- 
ments and  sham  statistics.  Famines  have  become 
more  frequent,  except  in  native  states;  the  death- 
rate  is  rising,  and  it  is  true  that  the  record  is  reach- 
ing something  like  a  normal  figure  for  Asia;  poverty 
increases;  the  exports  exceed  the  imports;  the  im- 
ports are  dangerously  low;  the  land  assessment  is 
raised;  Mr.  Digby 's  figures  are  true  figures;  land-tax 
and  economic  rent  are  confounded;  the  Indian  peo- 

290 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

pies  weep  the  tears  of  such  as  are  oppressed,  and  on 
the  side  of  their  oppressors  is  power;  but  they  have, 
other  than  Mr.  Hyndman,  the  Congress,  the  Bengali 
Babus,  and  the  Poona  Brahmins,  no  comforter.  Of 
the  famines  in  anti-British  days  I  have  spoken,  and 
of  the  1J  millions  who  died  in  1899-1900  most  came 
from  native  states  when  past  relief  to  die  on  British 
relief  works. 

To  the  confusion  of  Mr.  Hyndman  the  last  Census 
showed  an  increase  of  3.9  per  cent,  in  the  population 
of  British  India  and  a  loss  of  6.6  per  cent,  in  native 
states,  the  decline  being  greatest  in  Baroda  and  the 
states  of  Central  India,  Rajputana,  and  of  Bombay, 
in  which  the  failure  of  crops  was  as  severe  in  the  last 
famine  as  it  was  in  British  India,  while  measures  of 
prevention  and  relief  were  by  no  means  so  compre- 
hensive and  efficient.  I  have  pointed  out  these 
indisputable  facts  to  Mr.  Hyndman,  but  he  returns 
to  the  charge.  Facts  are  no  use  to  him,  and  he 
continues  to  think  the  native  states  are  best  admin- 
istered. No  one  can  be  more  anxious  to  agree  with 
him  so  far  than  an  ex-Resident  of  Travancore  and 
Cochin,  but  all  native  states  are  not  as  they  are, 
and  the  truth  must  be  told. 

As  to  the  assessment,  that  subject  has  been  suffi- 
ciently treated  elsewhere,  and  the  figures  regarding 
the  death-rate  only  began  to  be  approximately  accu- 
rate in  quite  recent  years.  Competent  authorities 
calculate  the  rates  before  1880  at  about  35  per  mille, 
and  the  figure  now  is  33,  including  the  loss  from 
the  plague  epidemic.  The  folly  of  accepting  24  per 

291 


INDIA 

mille  for  1884  is  apparent  when  the  fact  is  remem- 
bered that  few  European  countries  at  that  time  had 
so  low  a  death-rate. 

Upon  the  question  of  the  drain  Mr.  Hyndman, 
relying  on  the  conjectural  figures  of  Mr.  Dutt, 
omitted  necessary  deductions,  which  reduced  the 
excess  of  exports  over  imports  from  30  to  about  10 
millions,  and  grossly  exaggerated,  indeed  more  than 
doubled,  the  amounts  paid  to  Europeans  as  salaries 
out  of  Indian  revenues.  He  treats,  and  indeed  most 
writers  on  the  Congress  side  treat,  the  figures  of 
Messrs.  Dutt,  Digby,  and  Naoroji  as  if  they  came 
down  from  heaven,  whence  indeed  they  might  have 
come,  so  little  relation  have  they  to  the  facts  on 
earth. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  none  of  the  papers 
exposing  these  figures,  none  of  the  letters  published 
from  time  to  time  in  the  Times,  and  holding  the 
field,  are  ever  republished  in  the  native  press,  which 
immediately  repeats  all  over  India  any  statement, 
however  false  and  misleading,  made  to  discredit 
British  administration.  The  drain,  in  fact,  is  an 
imaginary  monster,  and  in  other  countries  where 
the  like  phenomenon  exists  it  is  regarded  as  a  proof 
of  prosperity.  Everything  that  goes  out  is  paid  for, 
and  in  such  commodities  —  for  instance,  cotton  goods 
and  bullion  —  as  the  country  most  wants.  Had 
capital  been  raised  in  India  for  her  development, 
the  interest  would  have  been  three  times  that  paid 
to  Britain,  and  as  a  result  of  the  drain  there  are 
hundreds  of  golden  streams  flowing  from  the  new 

292 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

trades  and  industries  developed  by  the  foreign 
capital  and  the  foreign  agents.  The  Statesman's 
Year-Book  shows  that  in  the  United  States  and  in 
Argentine  the  exports  exceed  the  imports  by  74  and 
15  millions  respectively.  Yet  they  are  superlatively 
prosperous  countries,  while  Persia,  Turkey,  and 
China  show  excess  of  imports  over  exports,  ranging 
from  1J  to  14  J  millions,  and  they  are  not  exactly 
in  the  van  of  the  world  of  progress.  Suppose  India 
ceased  to  export  so  largely,  she  would  in  proportion 
be  paid  less,  and  her  peoples  would  accordingly 
suffer.  It  is  they  that  get  the  money  or  goods  paid  in 
return,  and  not  the  Government.  All  the  raw  prod- 
ucts, except  tea,  coffee,  and  indigo,  are  produced 
from  native  sources,  and  with  native  money.  What 
would  India  do  with  her  excess  of  crops  and  products 
if  she  did  not  export  them,  for  there  is  a  great  surplus 
even  in  famine  grass,  famine  being  dearth  of  money, 
not,  from  an  all-Indian  point  of  view  and  in  these 
days  of  extended  communications,  of  grain.  Surely, 
that  this  surplus  exists  is  a  proof  of  the  wealth,  not 
of  the  poverty,  of  India.  Trade  is  not  the  result 
of  dark  intrigue  between  the  Indian  Government 
and  the  British  and  foreign  nations.  The  fact  is, 
India  pays  no  tribute  to  Britain,  and  her  present 
prosperity  and  future  salvation  depend  on  the  devel- 
opment of  the  industries  she  owes  chiefly  to  Brit- 
ish enterprise,  often,  like  the  tea  industry,  too  little 
rewarded  and  too  successfully  attacked  by  faddists 
and  theorisers. 

The  Labour  question  in  Assam  arose  entirely  from 

293 


INDIA 

the  action  of  the  Chief  Commissioner,  Mr.  (now 
Sir  H.)  Cotton,  whose  view  that  the  coolies  in  the 
tea  gardens  were  underpaid  was  not  shared  by  the 
Assam  Commission,  or  probably  in  any  quarter 
other  than  the  Bengali  Babus  and  agitators,  who  saw 
an  opportunity  of  depreciating 'a  British  enterprise, 
to  the  benefit  of  which  to  Assam,  and  other  parts 
of  India,  eloquent  testimony  is  borne  by  the  last 
Census  Report,  by  the  condition  of  the  labourers 
themselves,  and  by  the  rate  of  the  wages  they  enjoy. 
Questions  regarding  labour  in  India  and  other 
parts  of  Asia  have  lately  received  unusual  prominence 
owing  to  the  Chinese  Labour  question,  which  has 
excited  so  great  a  feeling  throughout  England,  where 
it  is  believed  on  all  hands  that  such  labour  competes 
with  that  of  white  men  from  Britain,  owing  to  the 
first  strike  which  has  happened  on  the  East  Indian 
Railway  and  owing  to  the  problem  of  Indian  immi- 
gration into  the  Transvaal  and  the  Pacific  Coast  of 
America.  It  is  hopeless  to  expect  dispassionate  con- 
sideration of  this  complicated  and,  for  England,  most 
uncomfortable  question,  until  the  irreconcilables 
learn,  as  they  would  learn  from  actual  experience, 
that  Asiatic  labour  does  not  compete  with  skilled 
white  labour,  but  provides  for  the  latter  a  larger 
field.  In  countries  with  a  tropical  climate  white 
men  are  unable  and  unwilling  to  perform  the  actual 
drudgery,  which  in  such  cases  falls  to  the  lot  of  the 
Asiatic  immigrant.  If  they  could  do  this  work,  they 
would  waste  their  time  and  lower  the  rate  of  wages 
by  so  doing,  their  proper  function  being  that  which 

294 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

they  always  perform  wherever  white  and  coloured 
labour  are  concurrently  employed  —  namely,  that 
of  inspecting  and  supervising,  which  is  necessarily 
a  more  highly  paid  and  more  congenial  duty  than 
actual  manual  labour. 

The  cry  for  the  expulsion  of  Asiatics  from  the 
Pacific  Coast  is  due  to  fear  of  competition  in  labour, 
to  ignorance  of,  or  to  perverse  blindness  to,  the  fact 
that  the  enormous  capabilities  of  a  land  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey  await  just  the  plentiful  supply  of 
unskilled  labour  which  the  Asiatics  can,  and  Euro- 
peans cannot,  supply,  and  to  failure  to  appreciate 
the  fact  that  the  more  Asiatics  are  employed  the 
more  work  there  will  be  for  white  men.  The  fear 
of  Japan  and  the  racial  feeling  of  dislike  is  indus- 
triously fanned  by  the  Yellow  Press,  but  it  is  clear, 
and  it  is  only  right,  that  the  people  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  must  acquire  their  experience  and  settle  this 
question  for  themselves,  while  the  Mikado's  Gov- 
ernment manifests  no  desire  to  force  Japanese  immi- 
gration upon  an  unwilling  continent. 

In  the  Transvaal,  excitement  has  been  raised  to 
fever  pitch  by  the  passing  of  the  Registration  Law. 
In  Natal,  Indian  coolies  are  allowed  either  to  renew 
their  indentures  upon  expiry,  to  return  to  India,  or 
to  remain  in  Natal  subject  to  a  special  poll-tax, 
which,  in  the  absence  of  registration,  they  gener- 
ally escape.  Large  numbers,  however,  of  the  super- 
abundant coolies  have  crossed  over  to  the  Transvaal, 
and  without  a  system  of  passports  and  registration 
the  Transvaal  Government  cannot  regulate  such  im- 

295 


INDIA 

migration.  Hence  the  new  law,  to  carry  out  which 
it  is  also  necessary  to  provide  against  transference 
of  passports,  which  are  usually  passed  on  to  others 
by  their  original  holders,  who  have  either  died  or 
left  the  country.  Hence  also  the  necessity  for  iden- 
tification by  finger  prints,  which  has  been  in  force 
some  years,  although  it  has  been  represented  as  a 
new  and  cruel  refinement  of  oppression  on  the  part 
of  the  Transvaal  Government.  A  committee  was 
formed  in  England  to  conduct  an  agitation  and  to 
rouse  public  feeling  upon  the  subject.  Of  this  com- 
mittee I  was  a  member,  but  I  resigned,  because  it 
appeared  to  me  and  still  appears  to  me  obvious  that 
the  Transvaal  Government  must  have  and  will 
have  its  own  way  in  regard  to  this  matter,  and  that 
it  knows  its  own  business  much  better  than  we  do 
in  England;  that  if  interference  is  practised  in  regard 
to  such  details  as  those  of  immigration  laws,  such 
laws  cannot  be  properly  administered,  and  the  con- 
sequence will  be  that  Indians,  who  have  already 
become  a  rock  of  offence,  will  be  utterly  cast  out, 
like  an  abominable  branch,  to  their  own  disadvan- 
tage and  to  the  loss  of  the  Transvaal,  where  they 
are  a  valuable  and  prosperous  asset.  Surely  it  is 
time  to  admit  the  undisputable  fact  that  there  is 
an  ineradicable  prejudice  against  the  introduction  of 
Orientals  into  our  Colonies,  except  upon  such  terms 
as  the  Colonies  themselves  lay  down.  It  is  an  affair 
for  themselves  alone,  and  no  good  can  come  of 
accusing  them  of  being  hard-hearted,  arrogant,  and 
unjust,  epithets  in  exchange  for  which  they  might 

296 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

readily  and  with  equal  justice  return  others,  such  as 
ignorant,  unpractical,  and  sentimental.  Already  the 
Indians  in  Natal  exceed  in  number  the  Europeans, 
whom,  if  they  were  enfranchised,  they  would  out- 
vote. A  great  deal  too  much  is  made  of  the  plea 
that  the  injustice,  for  so  it  must  appear  to  those  who 
hold  that  one  law  is  possible  all  over  a  world-wide 
empire,  must  prejudice  our  position  in  India.  It 
will  probably  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  Indians  are 
accustomed  to  be  governed,  and  are  perfectly  well 
aware,  from  long  experience,  that  there  are  some 
Colonies  to  which  they  are  allowed  to  emigrate, 
and  others  to  which  emigration  is  forbidden.  They 
are  also  practical  people,  who  realise  that  while  they 
are  in  a  country  they  must  submit  to  its  laws,  and 
the  class  of  Indian  which  emigrates  has  made  up  its 
mind  to  put  up  with  any  resulting  inconvenience. 

No  one  can  feel  more  keenly  than  I  do  how 
unfair  it  is  that  our  highly  civilised,  law-abiding,  and 
humane  Indian  fellow-subjects  cannot  settle  at  pleas- 
ure in  any  particular  part  of  the  so-called  British 
Empire,  but  since  that  empire  consists  in  a  great 
measure  of  a  loose  aggregate  of  self-governing  com- 
munities it  is  far  better  to  acknowledge  the  fact  than 
to  persevere  in  petty  coercion  and  moral  suasion, 
which  are  doomed  from  the  outset  to  failure,  and  can 
only  exasperate  Colonies  which  know  how  to  and 
mean  to  manage  their  own  affairs.  The  arguments 
used  by  those  who  conduct  this  agitation  are  manu- 
factured for  the  occasion.  The  kind  of  political  and 
social  equalities  for  which  they  are  working  has  never 

297 


INDIA 

existed  in  India  between  caste  and  caste,  tribe  and 
tribe,  people  and  people,  nor  does  the  British  Gov- 
ernment practise,  nor  will  it  ever  practise,  unless  it 
be  in  a  brain  storm,  the  principles  which  the  com- 
mittee is  now  seeking  to  impose  upon  an  unwilling 
colony.  It  is,  of  course,  most  deplorable  that  2,000 
Hindoos  should  have  landed  last  year  at  Vancouver 
and  have  been  subjected  to  inhospitality  and  ill- 
treatment,  but  it  is  impossible  to  dictate  to  white 
men  in  any  part  of  the  world  what  shall  be  their 
attitude  in  respect  to  brown  men  or  yellow  men. 
How  would  the  English  bear  to  be  coerced  into 
accepting  Chinese  labour?  It  is  not  a  question  even 
open  to  argument.  The  unrest  in  India  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it,  and  the  Bengali  Babus  and  the  Poona 
Brahmins,  who  are  prepared  to  use  this  or  any  other 
argument,  care  no  more  what  becomes  of  the  coolies 
from  India  than  they  do  what  becomes  of  coolies 
in  India  or  of  the  British  Empire.  It  is  notorious, 
let  Mr.  Meredith  Townsend  testify  amongst  other 
authorities,  that  feelings  of  pity  and  sympathy  do 
not  exist  amongst  Orientals,  though,  like  others, 
they  may  be  simulated  for  purposes  of  political 
agitation. 

The  Colonies  think  that  Asiatic  competition  is 
driving  out  white  men.  They  are  as  much  entitled 
to  their  own  opinion  on  this  point  as  labour  in  Eng- 
land is  entitled  to  the  opinion  that  Chinese  competi- 
tion drives  out  white  labour  in  the  mines  of  the 
Transvaal.  They  are  determined  to  keep  their  coun- 
try as  far  as  possible  a  white  man's  country,  and 

298 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

they  have  as  good  a  right  to  do  it  as  Australia. 
They  have  an  object  lesson  in  Natal,  close  at  hand, 
where  the  Indians  are  already  to  the  Europeans  as 
13  is  to  10.  It  will  be  impossible  to  keep  the  Col- 
onies if  the  Home  Government  endeavours  to  force 
them  to  become  a  field  for  Asiatic  labour.  The  In- 
dian question  in  South  Africa  is  by  no  means  only 
a  coolie  question,  for  Indians  compete  with  European 
traders  with  great  success  wherever  they  penetrate, 
and  work  harder  for  less  profit. 

In  Canada  a  similar  problem  presents  itself  for  set- 
tlement. Chinese  immigrants  have  been  subjected 
to  a  poll-tax  which  now  amounts  to  not  less  than 
£100  per  head,  but  numbers  which  at  first  fell  off 
are  now  rising  again,  the  scarcity  rate  of  wages  being 
so  attractive  that  the  immigrants  can  pay  the  crush- 
ing fine  imposed  upon  them,  and  the  need  for  them 
being  so  great  that  they  can  always  obtain  employ- 
ment. 

There  are  in  Canada  around  about  15,000  Japanese 
who  are  considered  as  serious  a  menace  as  the  Chinese, 
and  keener  competitors  with  the  working  man.  That 
is  to  say  that  their  w^ants  are  fewer,  and  that  they 
are  content  with  less.  The  two  classes,  those  who 
realise  the  advantages  to  white  labour  of  Asiatic 
immigration,  and  those  who  are  unable  to  see,  or 
deny,  that  any  such  advantages  result,  are  both 
represented  in  British  Columbia,  whither  immigrants 
come  from  China,  Japan,  and  India.  The  Western 
Federation  of  Miners  of  the  United  States  controls 
the  situation,  and  it  is  opposed  not  only  to  coloured 

299 


INDIA 

but  also  to  white  immigration  labour  being  paid  at 
present  at  scarcity  wages.  Strong  objection  is  taken 
to  the  immigration  organised  by  the  Salvation  Army, 
and  to  the  arrival  of  Indians,  both  of  which  classes  of 
British  subject  are  quite  as  unwelcome  as  the  Chinese 
and  Japanese. 

Here  is  a  serious  situation  like  that  which  has 
arisen  in  the  Transvaal,  and  it  is  impossible  for  the 
British  Government  to  impose  free  trade  principles 
in  respect  of  labour  upon  self-governing  colonies, 
which,  in  fact,  it  does  not,  never  will,  and  never 
should  itself  enforce. 

The  strongest  Free  Traders  are  avowedly,  or  other- 
wise, protectionists  as  regards  labour  questions.  It 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  far  better  to  take  up  openly 
the  position,  as  I  would,  that  British  labour  should 
have  open,  acknowledged,  and  undisguised  prefer- 
ence over  foreign  labour,  that  it  should  be  assisted 
in  every  legitimate  manner,  but  that  no  steps  should 
be  taken  in  obedience  to  a  blind  outcry,  which  pro- 
ceeds from  a  want  of  appreciation  of  the  true  con- 
ditions of  the  problem,  and  probably  tends  to  run 
counter  to  the  true  interests  of  white  labour.  Take 
for  instance  merchant  shipping,  in  connection  with 
which  objections  are  raised  to  the  use  of  Lascar 
labour.  It  is  obvious  to  anyone  who  has  travelled 
by  our  ships  to  the  East  that  their  help  is  an  abso- 
lute necessity  in  tropical  waters.  Without  it  our 
Eastern  trade  would  dwindle  to  small  dimensions 
or  disappear;  first  of  all,  because  the  shipping  com- 
panies could  not  without  it  pay  a  dividend;  secondly, 

300 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

because  white  labour  could  not  stoke  in  the  Red  Sea, 
or  perform  many  functions  which  come  naturally  to 
the  coloured  man. 

Immediate  objection  might  be  taken  to  this  argu- 
ment, of  course,  and  anyone  might  point  out  that 
the  case  is  given  away  when  it  is  admitted  that  the 
companies  would  not  pay  so  well  if  the  labour  em- 
ployed were  white.  But  the  real  fact  is  that  all-white 
labour  could  not  be  got,  and  if  it  could  be  got  it 
could  not  be  paid,  and  the  only  result  of  abolishing 
Lascar  labour  would  be  to  destroy  a  great  and  flour- 
ishing trade,  which  now  employs  immense  numbers 
of  white  men  as  supervisors  and  inspectors,  by  what- 
ever nautical  titles  known,  of  coloured  seamen. 

Few  courses  are  more  likely  to  prejudice  the  cause 
of  labour  in  India  than  the  action  of  the  Congress 
party,  which  is  actively  engaged  in  disparaging  Brit- 
ish goods  throughout  India,  and  it  is  now  asserted 
by  their  agents  that  there  is  very  little  cotton  in 
Manchester  goods,  which,  they  say,  are  loaded  with 
china  clay,  starch,  magnesium,  and  zinc. 

Under  the  true  Svadeshi  policy,  which  Lord  Minto 
enunciated,  there  would  be  a  great  future  for  India, 
not  only  for  its  textile  industries,  but  for  work  in 
gold,  silver,  iron,  copper,  brass,  and  wood;  in  pottery, 
dyeing,  tanning,  and  leather  work;  in  cane  and  bam- 
boo; in  turning,  carving,  and  embroidery;  in  sugar 
refining,  tobacco  curing,  and  in  oil  and  flour  mills. 
The  raw  material  for  many  of  these  industries  is  at 
present  exported  to  foreign  countries,  whence  the 
manufactured  product  is  now  returned  to  India, 

301 


INDIA 

where  an  abundant  supply  of  cheap  fuel  and  cheap 
labour  is  alike  available.  It  is  not  likely,  for  instance, 
that  India  will  export  oil  seed  permanently  to  the 
value  of  £106,000,000  and  import  oil  to  the  value  of 
£22,000,000. 

Again,  she  grows  cotton  enough  for  her  own  con- 
sumption, and  exports  the  greater  part  thereof,  and 
half  of  her  imports  are  Lancashire  cotton  manufac- 
tures. She  is  one  of  the  greatest  sugar  producers  in 
the  world,  but  she  imports  sugar  to  the  value  of 
nearly  £5,000,000  sterling.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  countervailing  excise  levied  on  cotton  fabrics 
and  yarns  produced  in  Indian  mills  of  a  lower  count 
than  twenties,  in  order  to  prevent  the  import-duty 
acting  as  a  bounty  in  favour  of  the  Indian  manu- 
factures as  against  those  of  Lancashire,  is  regarded 
as  a  grievance.  This  is  not  unnatural,  and  it  is 
probable  that  there  are  others  who,  like  myself, 
voted  for  the  countervailing  excise  in  the  belief  that 
it  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  India's  connection 
with  England,  and  of  the  free  trade  policy  of  the 
Empire,  and  not  because  it  was  in  itself  required  in 
the  separate  and  exclusive  interests  of  India,  so  far, 
that  is,  as  such  can  subsist. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  while  India  is,  and  it 
may  be  hoped  will  remain,  completely  independent 
in  respect  of  her  finances,  she  is,  though  internally 
independent  as  regards  her  economic  policy,  subject 
as  regards  all  matters  by  which  other  parts  of  the 
British  Empire  or  foreign  countries  are  affected,  to 
the  necessity  of  adopting  the  principles  Imperial 

302 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

Parliament  prescribes  as  affecting  all  dependencies 
of  the  Crown,  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
countervailing  duty  does  not  affect  the  still  extensive 
hand-weaving  industry. 

The  Indians  are  cunning  workers  in  wood  and 
ivory,  capital  carpenters  and  good  blacksmiths,  and 
as  shoemakers  they  might  with  education  eventually 
approach  the  Chinese  standard.  As  weavers  they 
are  unsurpassed,  probably  unequalled,  in  the  world. 
Gold,  coal,  manganese,  lead,  copper,  and  other  min- 
erals abound  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth:  diamonds 
and  other  precious  stones  are  found  upon  its  surface: 
the  forests  are  full  of  rare  and  valuable  products, 
over  and  above  timber,  out  of  which  anything  can 
be  manufactured  from  a  ship  to  a  match-box.  Skins 
and  tanning  materials  are  equally  plentiful;  along- 
side cotton  and  jute  grow  dyeing  materials;  the  best 
of  carpets  are  made  by  the  most  ordinary  prisoner 
in  gaol;  fibres  are  positively  a  drug  in  the  market. 
At  present,  Germans  and  Japanese  supply,  at  suffi- 
ciently low  prices  for  their  clients,  furniture,  fans, 
ropes,  mats,  carpets,  baskets,  buttons,  and  a  hun- 
dred other  things,  which  could  be  equally  well  made 
in  the  country,  not  to  mention  the  supply  from 
England  of  cotton  goods,  hardware,  and  other  im- 
portant products.  If  the  proposed  University  of 
Research  will  favour  the  establishment  of  new  indus- 
tries, Mr.  Tata  should  be  admitted  at  once  to  the 
Hindoo  Pantheon,  without  going  through  the  early 
stages  of  deification  described  by  Sir  Alfred  Lyall. 

It  is  in  textile  industries  that  India  will  best  be 

303 


INDIA 

able  to  compete  with  European  and  other  Asiatic 
countries,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  she  regards 
with  suspicion  efforts  to  introduce  into  her  mills 
labour  regulations  calculated  to  limit  the  output,  but 
not  to  raise  wages,  nor  to  render  the  wage-earners 
more  comfortable  and  contented,  for  according  to 
their  own  standards  they  have  at  present  little  of 
which  to  complain.  A  working  day  of  thirteen  hours 
does  not  in  India  by  any  means  signify  thirteen 
hours  work.  But  a  short  statutory  day  does  mean 
hard  unremitting  labour  without  those  intervals  for 
eating  and  gossiping,  smoking,  and  washing,  that 
go-as-you-please  atmosphere  which  is  so  grateful  to 
the  Oriental  mind. 

A  committee  which  recently  considered  textile 
factories'  labour  in  India  has  made  various  sugges- 
tions which  should  be  accepted  with  some  reserve 
and  not  without  modifications.  For  instance,  im- 
proving the  homes  and  home  surroundings  of  the 
mill  hands  is  a  matter  outside  the  conditions  under 
which  they  work  in  the  factories,  and  interference 
will  assuredly  be  resented.  Any  attempt  to  secure 
uniformity  in  the  administration  of  the  Factory  Act 
may  be  fraught  with  great  inconvenience,  and  even 
great  injustice,  for  since  climatic  conditions  are  by 
no  means  constant  in  a  great  continent,  uniformity 
is  not  to  be  desired,  nor,  without  hardship,  to  be 
secured.  Rigid  insistence  upon  certificates  of  age 
and  physical  fitness  are  likely  to  lead  to  hardship  to 
individuals,  if  not  to  abuse.  The  conversion  of  the 
factories  into  schools  is  not  likely  to  prove  accept- 

304 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

able  to  those  chiefly  interested.  Interference  with 
women  and  children  is  likely  to  prejudice,  without 
materially  assisting,  those  whom  it  is  intended  to 
advantage.  Insistence  upon  regular  hours  at  which 
work  is  to  commence  and  to  cease  is  bound  to  pro- 
duce inequality,  not  uniformity,  in  view  of  the  dif- 
ferent conditions  to  which  it  is  sought  to  apply 
this  rigid  rule,  summer  and  winter,  in  hot,  cold,  and 
rainy  weather.  There  are  parts  of  India  in  which 
the  inhabitants  do  not  and  cannot  come  out  at  5.30 
A.M.  without  catching  colds,  chills,  and  catarrh. 

Indeed,  the  mill  hands  of  Bombay  have  already 
held  a  meeting  in  order  to  protest  against  the  limi- 
tation of  the  hours  of  labour,  on  the  ground  that  they 
would  lose  the  chance  of  earning  overtime  wages, 
and  so  adding  to  their  incomes. 

Up  till  now  little  interference  has  been  attempted 
with  mines  in  India,  greatly  to  the  profit  of  the 
industries  concerned.  For  instance,  the  Mysore  gold 
fields  have  produced  £20,000,000  sterling  of  the 
precious  metal,  and  are  still  enjoying  great  pros- 
perity. They  are  one  of  the  chief  features  of  the 
economic  prosperity  of  the  Mysore  state,  and  are 
due  to  the  enterprise  of  British  capitalists,  of  whom 
the  late  Sir  Charles  Tennant  was  the  chief.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  find  in  any  country  a  more 
pleasing  spectacle  than  is  afforded  here  of  long 
streets  of  admirable  cottages,  clubs,  churches,  hos- 
pitals, bungalows,  well-kept  roads,  electrically  lighted 
streets,  and  gardens.  The  water  supply,  too,  is 
excellent,  and  the  high  standards  maintained  in  the 

305 


INDIA 

field  make  it  a  model  labour  settlement  of  great 
value  as  a  pattern  and  exemplar,  over  and  above 
the  large  pecuniary  profit  which  from  this  industry 
accrues  to  the  people  of  the  Mysore  state  and  of 
neighbouring  British  districts. 

The  miners  are  satisfied  with  the  wages  they 
receive,  which  are,  of  course,  far  higher  than  those 
earned  in  agriculture,  which  is  the  other  chief  occu- 
pation of  the  plateau,  and  the  wages  of  which  have, 
perhaps,  hardly  doubled  in  the  last  generation,  as 
they  have  no  doubt  in  other  parts  of  India. 

Of  the  Indian  agricultural  labourers  it  may  be 
said  that,  under  existing  circumstances,  they  do 
not  suffer  from  want  unless  crops  fail  and  prices 
rise,  when  they  would  probably  perish  in  large  num- 
bers but  for  the  system  of  relief  and  famine  preven- 
tion which  now  approaches  nearer  to  perfection  than 
is  given  to  most  human  institutions.  Indian  agri- 
culture has  rightly  been  described  as  a  perfect  picture 
of  careful  cultivation  combined  with  hard  labour, 
knowledge,  and  fertility  of  resource.  Dubois,  early 
in  last  century,  calculated  that  the  agricultural 
labourer  got  !&?.  a  year  and  his  keep.  I  estimated 
in  1890  that  such  an  one  in  South  India  made  £3, 
105.  a  year  in  all,  without  of  course  counting  the 
family  gains,  and  the  estimate  lately  made  by  the 
Government  of  India  gives  a  family  £8  a  year,  for 
the  wife  and  children  are  also  breadwinners.  To 
suppose  that  Government  can  raise  the  condition 
of  the  depressed  classes  was,  in  the  opinion  of  Abbe 
Dubois,  an  idle  dream,  and  Mr.  Crooke  at  the  end 

306 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

of  the  last  century  came  to  much  the  same  conclu- 
sion. Mr.  Justice  Ranade  pointed  out  to  his  fellow- 
countrymen  the  encouraging  increase  in  the  exports 
of  manufactured  goods  in  recent  years,  than  which 
the  rise  in  the  export  of  raw  produce  had  been  rela- 
tively less,  and  he  attributed  the  change  to  the  influx 
of  British  capital  and  enterprise,  and  saw  a  hopeful 
sign  in  the  already  altered  relations  between  Indian 
exports  and  imports  of  raw  and  manufactured  goods. 
He  was  a  wise  man  and  a  real  patriot,  and  there  is 
indeed  hardly  any  limit  to  the  development  which 
might  occur  in  this  respect  in  a  country  in  which 
vast  stores  of  raw  material  exist  alongside  the  cheap- 
est and  by  no  means  the  least  efficient  labour  in  the 
world. 

Mr.  Crooke,  writing  in  1888,  said  that  a  hired 
labourer  in  upper  India  got  3  rupees  (4s.)  a  month, 
part  of  which  was  paid  in  kind  at  village  rates,  and 
that  the  wages  of  blacksmiths  and  carpenters  had 
doubled  within  the  last  generation.  There  is  little 
doubt  that  the  conditions  of  artisan  life  in  India  are 
more  pleasant  and  more  healthful  than  those  of  a 
mechanic  in  an  English  town,  for  the  workers'  houses 
are  more  airy  and  there  is  less  confinement,  less 
grinding  hard  work.  They  do  not  produce  so  much 
because  the  division  of  labour,  universal  in  Europe, 
is  well-nigh  impossible  in  the  industrial  organisation 
which  obtains  in  India.  If  the  labour  of  the  arti- 
san was  aggregated,  its  volume  would  make  the  use 
of  power  possible  and  remunerative,  but  this  is  not 
the  case,  nor,  until  communication  and  distributing 

307 


INDIA 

agencies  become  more  assimilated  to  those  obtain- 
ing in  Europe,  is  such  development  likely  to  be 
experienced. 

It  is  difficult  for  the  English  student  to  realise 
that  the  majority  of  the  Indian  labouring  classes 
are  not  dependent  upon  the  rate  of  wages,  because 
they  work  upon  their  own  account.  In  comparing 
wages,  moreover,  in  India  and  England,  that  of  the 
English  farm-labourer  is  always  over-stated,  and  the 
fact  that  he  has,  and  the  Indian  farm-labourer  has 
not,  to  pay  rent  is  suppressed.  Generally  speaking, 
too,  the  Indian  average  income  per  head  is  treated 
as  if  it  were  the  income  per  family,  to  obtain  which  it 
must  be  multiplied  by  five.  A  coolie  on  an  Indian 
railway,  for  example,  will  get  probably  3d.  a  day 
himself,  while  his  wife  and  family  will  earn  2d.,  and 
a  penny  a  day  is  more  than  enough  to  maintain 
each  individual  member  of  the  average  family  of 
five  persons.  The  coolie  pays  nothing  for  rent  and 
fuel,  very  little  for  boots  and  clothes,  and  his  penny 
for  the  food  he  wants  goes  at  least  as  far  as  Is.  a 
day  for  the  British  workman's  tea,  bacon,  meat, 
bread,  etc. 

Mr.  Morison,  the  distinguished  educationalist, 
who  was  Principal  of  the  Mohammedan  Anglo- 
Oriental  College  at  Aligarh  and  is  now  a  member  of 
the  Secretary  of  State's  Council,  has  pointed  out 
how  different  is  the  type  of  industrial  organisation 
in  India  from  that  assumed  to  be  the  normal  type  in 
Western  Europe  and  the  United  States.  In  India 
the  labourer  usually  works  on  his  own  account,  and 

308 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

in  addition  to  supplying  the  labour  necessary  for 
the  production  of  wealth  undertakes  the  risks  of 
production,  while  in  Europe  he  is  usually  a  hired 
man  working  for  an  employer. 

Mr.  Morison  in  his  Industrial  Organisation  of  an 
Indian  province  has  also  shown  that  though  in  Indian 
towns  there  are  some  labourers  who  occupy  the  same 
position  as  wage-earners  in  Europe,  the  urban  popu- 
lation is  only  a  small  fraction,  and  the  great  bulk  of 
the  labouring  classes  are  men  who  work  on  their  own 
account,  and  not  for  an  employer.  The  output  of 
wealth  cannot  therefore  compare  with  that  of  coun- 
tries in  wrhich  industry  is  directed  by  technical  skill, 
commercial  knowledge,  administrative  ability,  and 
ample  capital,  in  addition  to  which  the  organisation 
of  Indian  society  does  not  admit  of  the  all-important 
division  of  labour.  Authentic  statistics,  however, 
show  that  the  indebtedness  of  Indian  peasants  is 
certainly  not  greater,  and  is  probably  smaller,  than 
that  of  Europeans  in  the  same  position,  and  that 
both  borrow  not  according  to  their  need,  but  accord- 
ing to  their  capacity. 

Except  under  the  most  intolerable  pressure,  writes 
a  Congress  journal,  United  India,  no  indigent  weaver 
or  mason  or  petty  hawker  will  resort  to  another 
occupation,  but  will  stick  to  his  own  till  actual  star- 
vation drives  him  to  the  labour  market. 

As  Mr.  Morison  says,  this  difference  invalidates 
the  application  to  India  of  most  of  the  current 
economic  doctrines  about  the  working-classes.  In 
the  normal  Indian  province  more  than  half  the  pop- 

309 


INDIA 

ulation  are  small  farmers,  whose  crops  are  needed 
first  of  all  to  feed  the  family,  and  afterwards  to  pro- 
vide, from  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the  remainder, 
the  funds  needed  for  rent  and  other  purposes,  such 
as  interest  on  debt,  which,  unfortunately,  forms  a 
very  frequent  feature  in  the  budget  of  the  petty 
farmer  in  most  countries. 

Exaction  of  high  interest  by  money-lenders,  and 
hopeless  indebtedness  on  the  part  of  the  borrowing 
agriculturist,  are  by  no  means  features  peculiar  to 
India.  They  are,  indeed,  common  to  agricultural 
life  in  every  country.  Credit,  as  Sir  F.  Nicholson 
says,  is  an  essential  factor  of  agriculture,  and  neither 
the  condition  of  the  country  nor  anything  else  affects 
the  one  great  fact  that  agriculturists  must  borrow. 

The  immobility  of  labour  is  another  factor  in  the 
case.  In  other  countries  it  migrates  to  places  where 
employment  offers,  but  in  India  only  where  special 
inducements  are  given,  as,  for  example,  in  Assam, 
Mysore,  or  in  Ceylon  or  other  colonies.  Rules  and 
regulations  too  often  impede  such  disposition  as 
there  is  to  move,  and  coolies  are  often  protected  to 
their  own  disadvantage.  This  is  conspicuously  the 
case  in  Bengal,  emigration  from  which  to  Assam  is 
so  beneficial  to  both  provinces. 

It  is  therefore  clear  that,  with  their  industrial 
organisation,  the  people  of  India  can  never  compare 
in  wealth  with  nations  in  which  wage-earners  work 
under  the  direction  of  employers,  and  receive  in 
addition  their  share  of  profit,  instead  of  taking  the 
risks  of  production  on  their  own  unaided  individual 

310 


ECONOMIC    POLICY 

shoulders.  In  India  that  system  is  universal  which 
in  other  countries  only  obtains  in  respect  of  agricul- 
ture, and  where  land  is  owned  or  rented  in  small 
holdings,  whereas  in  India  the  carpenter,  potter,  and 
blacksmith,  and  other  village  artisans,  are  all  small 
capitalists  without  capital,  if  the  expression  be 
allowed,  whose  labour  is,  to  a  great  extent,  wasted 
for  want  of  organisation. 

To  compare  the  conditions  of  life,  the  income  and 
needs  of  the  Indian  peasantry  with  those  of  similar 
classes  in  Eastern  and  Western  Europe  is  a  useless 
and,  indeed,  an  impossible  task.  Upon  the  whole, 
the  Indian  peasant,  in  ordinary  years,  is  not  in  a 
much  inferior  position  —  when  his  wants  and  his 
means  of  supplying  them  are  taken  into  considera- 
tion —  to  the  peasant  of  Europe.  The  contrast 
is  in  wants.  The  peasant  in  Eastern  Europe  has 
fewer  wants  than  the  peasant  of  Western  Europe, 
but  considerably  more  than  the  Indian  peasant;  in 
fact,  proximity  to  the  tropics  determines  not  a  lower 
standard  of  comfort,  but  a  simpler  standard  of 
wants.  The  Indian  peasant  can  feed  and  keep  him- 
self in  good  health,  with  grain  and  a  few  condiments, 
for  a  penny  a  day;  he  usually  has  free  quarters,  or 
accommodation  at  an  almost  nominal  rental,  and 
his  expenses  for  clothes  are  but  small.  The  British 
working  man,  on  the  other  hand,  has  to  pay  from 
25  per  cent,  to  40  per  cent,  of  his  earnings  in  rent, 
and  his  expenses  for  food  and  clothing  are,  of  course, 
very  considerable. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  teach  the  Indian  peasant 

311 


INDIA 

thrift.  Under  former  rulers  he  had  avowedly  been 
allowed  but  enough  for  bare  subsistence,  and  any 
margin  our  lower  land-tax  leaves  him  serves  but  to 
enhance  his  credit  with  the  money-lenders,  and  so 
contribute  to  his  indebtedness.  When  the  peasant 
grasps  the  idea  of  putting  a  penny  by  for  a  rainless 
day  a  great  advance  will  have  been  made;  but  the 
habit  of  centuries  has  not  as  yet  been  weakened. 
The  question  as  to  the  improvement  of  the  peasant's 
condition  is  one  that  can  hardly  be  decided  by  sta- 
tistics. Doubtless  his  nominal  income  has  increased, 
but  owing  to  payments  in  cash  —  instead  of  in  grain 
as  formerly  —  and  higher  prices,  he  is  probably  not 
so  very  much  better  off  than  before,  except  where 
he  has  profited  by  the  local  expenditure  of  British 
capital,  and  the  establishment  of  some  new,  or  the 
development  of  some  old,  industry. 

In  considering  Indian  economic  questions  it  must, 
moreover,  never  be  forgotten  that  tranquillity  and 
comfort  rather  than  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  or 
the  acquisition  of  higher  wages,  are  the  objects  of 
the  Indian,  and  that  agriculturists  will  not  be  at- 
tracted wholesale  to  factories  by  the  offer  of  higher 
wages;  which  indeed  are  perhaps  not  higher  when 
the  addition  of  house  rent  and  the  greater  cost  of 
living  in  towns  are  taken  into  account. 

Nor  must  the  fact  be  overlooked  that  it  is  by 
helping  cottage  industries  that  industrial  develop- 
ment can  be  best  effected,  and  its  range  most  widely 
extended,  for  the  village  artisans  are  as  the  sands 
of  the  sea  compared  with  the  numbers  provided 

312 


ECONOMIC   POLICY 

with  employment.  That  remarkably  able  and  rad- 
ically minded  ruler,  the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  dwelt 
upon  this  fact  at  the  East  Indian  Industrial  Con- 
ference. 

But  if  the  economic  development  of  India  depends, 
as  it  does,  upon  the  provision  of  the  necessary  capi- 
tal, what  are  the  prospects  in  this  behalf?  British 
capital  is  still  shy,  and  the  agitators,  by  increasing  the 
indisposition  of  Europeans  to  invest  in  India,  have 
done  her  the  worst  turn  within  their  power.  South 
America,  with  its  somewhat  unstable  republics,  is 
still  a  far  more  attractive  field.  Probably  as  other 
countries  require  less  capital  more  will  come  to  India, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  set-back  occa- 
sioned by  the  present  unrest.  Commercial  confidence 
is  a  plant  of  exceptionally  slow  growth,  and  no  sooner 
are  we  rid  of  the  unstable  rupee,  and  assured  of  a 
fixed  gold  standard,  than  we  are  threatened  with 
instability  of  another  character.  Though  firm  and 
wise  treatment  has  averted  the  threatened  crisis, 
the  effects  of  it  will  not  so  quickly  pass  away.  The 
creation  of  the  department  of  commerce  and  indus- 
try should  serve  to  define  and  develop  the  economic 
policy  of  the  Government  of  India,  but  the  great 
need  is  to  coax  Indian  capital,  of  which  it  has  been 
estimated  that  there  are  no  less  than  £500,000,- 
000  sterling,  into  Indian  industries.  If  the  Congress 
agitators,  instead  of  complaining  about  the  drain 
of  interest  on  borrowed  capital,  would  bring  indig- 
enous hoards  to  light,  and  induce  their  owners  to 
invest  them  in  the  country,  they  would  do  some 

313 


INDIA 

service  in  their  day  and  generation.  As  it  is,  they 
actually  lament  that  British  capital  has  come  into 
India  to  develop  the  country,  co  create  her  trade,  to 
cover  her  with  a  network  of  railways  and  communica- 
tions, and  to  endow  her  with  great  works  of  irrigation. 
It  is  difficult  to  define  briefly  the  economic  policy  of 
the  Government  of  India,  but  Lord  Minto  has  clearly 
stated  that  the  development  of  home  industries  in 
preference  to  importation  from  without,  of  anything 
that  can  be  produced  within,  the  limits  of  the  Empire, 
is  one  of  its  cardinal  features,  and  the  Government  of 
India  has  insisted  during  the  preferential  tariffs  con- 
troversy that  there  shall  not  be  imposed  upon  it  any 
system  unfavourable  to  the  interests  of  India  and 
repugnant  to  the  decision  at  which  it  then  arrived, 
the  details  of  which  are  contained  in  a  blue  book  on 
Preferential  Tariffs,  published  in  1904.  Of  Indian 
exports,  foreign  countries  take  more  than  60  while 
the  British  Empire  takes  under  40  per  cent.,  so  that 
in  the  event  of  a  tariff  war  foreign  countries  might 
refuse  to  take  India's  exports,  while  she  would  be 
unable  to  act  as  her  interests  might  in  that  case 
require,  owing  to  the  fiscal  policy  of  England.  Of 
her  imports,  on  the  other  hand,  foreign  countries 
supply  25  and  the  British  Empire  75  per  cent. 
India,  therefore,  has  little  by  way  of  preference  to 
offer,  and  has  very  little  profit  to  make  from  an  Im- 
perial interpreferential  policy.  There  are,  of  course, 
those  who  hold  different  views,  and  the  question  is 
not  one  to  be  discussed  in  these  pages,  but  it  seems 
of  little  practical  value  to  conjecture  what  would  be 

314 


ECONOMIC   POLICY 

the  wisest  course  for  India  to  pursue  were  her  cir- 
cumstances different  from  what  they  actually  are. 

There  is  little  proof  to  be  found  in  any  direction 
of  willingness  to  sacrifice  Indian  to  British  interests. 
The  tea  industry  has  been  protected  by  the  Tea  Cess 
Act  and  indigo  by  a  special  grant;  efforts  at  least 
have  been  made  to  improve  the  somewhat  inadequate 
banking  system;  the  customs  service  has  not  long 
since  been  reformed;  cable  rates  have  been  reduced, 
and,  as  has  been  stated  above,  a  department  of 
Commerce  and  Industry  has  been  created.  In  no 
direction  is  any  sign  forthcoming  of  selfish  exploita- 
tion, in  all  quarters  is  evidence  seen  of  increasing 
prosperity.  The  Hindu  Patriot  lately  admitted  that 
the  day  labourer  who  used  to  get  one  now  gets  two 
pence  a  day,  and  wages  generally  have  increased  by 
50  per  cent,  upon  the  figures  of  last  generation,  while 
the  standards  of  living  among  the  poor  have  improved 
to  an  extent  visible  to  all  whose  eyes  are  not  blinded 
by  prejudice  and  hostility.  Since  the  new  currency 
policy  was  brought  into  play  in  1893,  up  to  1905  the 
expenditure  on  railways  and  irrigation  has  increased 
by  56  and  the  capital  invested  by  joint-stock  com- 
panies by  23  per  cent.;  savings  bank  deposits  have 
risen  by  43  and  private  deposits  in  joint-stock  banks 
by  130  per  cent.;  deposits  in  exchange  banks  by  95 
per  cent.;  the  income  assessable  to  income-tax  has 
risen  by  29,  the  rupee  circulation  by  27,  and  the 
note  circulation  by  68  per  cent.,  and  imports  have 
gone  up  35  and  exports  48  per  cent.  —  figures  which 
show  that  the  economic  policy  of  the  Government 

315 


INDIA 

may,  in  some  respects,  be  satisfactorily  defined  by 
its  actual  results. 

Nor,  when  pessimistic  descriptions  are  manufac- 
tured and  circulated  wholesale,  is  it  unworthy  of  note 
that  United  India,  a  Congress  organ,  in  a  series  of 
articles  on  the  Indian  agricultural  labourer,  reveals 
the  unwillingness  of  the  land-owner  to  raise  his 
labourer's  wages  in  due  proportion  to  the  rise  in  the 
prices  of  produce,  because  the  average  rate  of  profit 
on  money  invested  in  land  is  only  6  per  cent. 

"For  a  person  who  invests  his  money  in  land 
in  this  country,  the  average  rate  of  profit  is  only 
about  6  per  cent.  It  is  not  therefore  equitable 
to  expect  him  to  raise  the  rate  of  wages  of  his 
labourers." 

How  fortunate  would  the  English  landholder 
think  himself  in  the  same  case  and  how  willingly 
would  he  raise  the  wages  he  pays. 

It  may  be  roundly  stated  that  the  Government  of 
India  pursues  a  Svadeshi  policy  —  that  is  to  say,  a 
policy  of  encouraging  local  industries  and  manufac- 
tures, and  as  far  back  as  1883  local  governments 
were  instructed  to  supply  their  wants  in  the  local 
market  of  articles  of  bo na  fide  local  manufacture. 
The  Government  of  India  expressed  its  desire  to 
give  the  utmost  encouragement  to  every  effort  to 
substitute  for  articles  now  obtained  from  Europe, 
articles  of  indigenous  origin,  and,  except  where  a 
material  difference  in  price  and  quality  existed,  to 
give  the  preference  to  Indian  manufactures.  It 
went  further  and  reminded  all  its  officers  that  many 

316 


ECONOMIC   POLICY 

articles  which  may  not  be  immediately  obtainable 
in  the  local  markets  can  be  made  in  the  event  of 
Government  encouraging  their  manufacture.  Lord 
Minto  has  accepted  and  emphasised  this  principle, 
and  during  his  term  of  office,  and  while  Bengali 
agitators  have  set  on  foot  a  sham  Svadeshi  move- 
ment, intended  to  further  their  own  objects,  and 
to  injure  their  adversaries,  he  has  in  several  di- 
rections developed  and  extended  the  true  Svadeshi 
policy. 

It  is  not  contended  that  British  rule  is  perfect,  and 
there  are,  of  course,  directions  in  which  improvements 
are  required.  One  such  relates  to  railway  rates,  with 
which  the  export  trade  is,  of  course,  intimately  con- 
nected, and  during  the  last  two  years  strenuous 
efforts  have  been  made  to  bring  them  into  fair  rela- 
tions with  commercial  interests,  to  increase  the  roll- 
ing-stock, and  to  give  greater  play  to  technical  and 
trading  rather  than  to  official  considerations.  Mr. 
Morley  has  also  appointed  a  Special  Committee  to 
inquire  into  railway  finance,  to  report  whether  larger 
sums  should  be  spent,  and  to  suggest  improvements 
in  the  administration.  The  Indian  Government, 
which  owns  the  whole  or  part  of  almost  all  the  lines, 
occupies  a  very  strong  position,  and  if  such  a  step 
were  deemed  advisable  could  follow  the  example  of  the 
German  Government  and  control  sea  freights,  and  in- 
fluence the  course  of  trade  to  an  extent  which  would 
probably  be  found  incompatible  with  the  accepted 
English  policy  in  regard  to  such  questions.  An  era  of 
greater  activity  and  better  management  has  set  in,  and 

317 


INDIA 

there  is  no  room  for  the  complaint,  formerly  made, 
that  railway  direction  was  a  close  official  preserve. 

Another  much-needed  reform,  but  one  hardly 
within  the  power  of  Government  to  effect,  is  the 
substitution  of  coal  for  other  kinds  of  fuel.  The 
chief  domestic  fuel  of  the  people  is  dried  cowdung, 
the  use  of  which  for  this  purpose  robs  the  fields  of 
their  natural  manure.  As  land  comes  under  cultiva- 
tion, which  previously  was  scrub  or  forest  —  one  of 
the  chief  reasons,  of  course,  for  the  increase  in  the 
land  revenue,  which  malevolence  ascribes  to  the 
greed  of  the  Government,  —  fuel  gets  more  and  more 
rare,  and  cowdung  is  more  and  more  in  request. 
The  provision  of  cheap  coal,  therefore,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  wants  of  India,  and  the  matter  concerns 
the  agricultural  as  much  as  the  industrial  worker. 
There  is  plenty  of  coal  in  Bengal  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  continent  of  India,  and  cheap  carriage  by  rail 
is  the  problem  to  be  solved,  and  Mr.  Morley's  Com- 
mission will  no  doubt  go  as  near  to  solving  it  as  is 
possible  in  existing  circumstances.  Meanwhile  it 
has  been  calculated  that  Indian  rates  are  relatively 
from  40  to  60  per  cent,  higher  than  those  obtaining 
in  the  United  Kingdom.  Diversity  of  occupation 
and  removal  of  as  many  of  the  people  as  possible 
from  the  practice  of  an  often  starveling  agriculture, 
being  one  of  the  chief  objects  in  view,  the  provision 
of  cheap  railway  carriage  is  one  of  the  chief  ends  to 
be  secured.  The  Times  has  suggested  that  if  the 
railways  cannot  afford  sufficient  reduction  the  Gov- 
ernment should  compensate  them  for  loss,  but  that 

318 


ECONOMIC   POLICY 

nothing  should  retard  the  introduction  of  this  vital 
reform,  and  as  so  many  of  the  lines  belong  wholly 
or  in  part  to  the  Government,  it  should  be  possible 
to  deal  satisfactorily  with  the  question. 

The  problem  is  how  to  apply  the  vast  amount  of 
labour  available  in  a  manner  which  will  give  a  decent 
livelihood  to  those  living  by  it,  and  will  develop  the 
extensive  resources  of  the  country;  how  to  train  the 
millions;  how  best  to  employ  them;  how  to  establish 
the  larger  industries  involving  an  extensive  use  of 
machinery,  for  on  such  must  the  industrial  future  of 
India  depend,  and  how  to  subsidise  the  not  less 
important  cottage  manufactures.  There  are  about 
200,000,000  to  treat,  and  if  the  whole  country  were 
fed  by  Indian  mills  only  1,000,000  of  the  11,000,000 
of  the  weaving  class  could  find  employment.  Rail- 
ways, jute  and  cotton  mills,  tea  gardens,  and  coal 
and  gold  mines  now  employ  about  1J  millions.  The 
Indians  are  at  heart  agriculturists,  new  employments 
can  only  divert  a  fraction  from  their  traditional  oc- 
cupation, and  Indian  industries  to  succeed  on  a  suf- 
ficient scale  must  still  be  chiefly  rural,  a  fact  which 
makes  the  provision  of  industrial  and  technical  edu- 
cation an  even  more  difficult  problem  in  India  than 
in  other  countries.  If  the  Government  can  stimu- 
late the  small  industries  in  the  hands  of  guilds 
constituted  on  a  caste  basis,  it  will  go  a  long  way 
towards  solving  a  large  problem,  and  only  in  some 
such  direction  can  light  be  seen. 

The  abstention  of  Government  from  any  unwel- 
come interference  with  the  labour  system,  which 

319 


INDIA 

must  develop  on  lines  familiar  to,  and  consonant 
with,  the  traditions,  feelings,  and  even  prejudices 
of  the  people,  are  of  paramount  importance.  The 
admirable  organisation  which  exists  for  dealing  with 
famine  is  based,  as  far  as  the  management  of  the 
camps  is  concerned,  on  the  family  system.  But 
legislation  in  regard  to  mining  regulates,  and  inter- 
feres with,  the  employment  of  the  men  and  of  women 
and  children  in  coal  mines.  The  men  cannot  leave 
their  fields  and  cut  coal  unless  their  women  can 
bring  their  dinners,  and  the  women  cannot  bring  the 
dinners  unless  they  may  also  bring  the  children. 
Nor  does  the  slightest  danger  result,  nor  have  acci- 
dents been  frequent  when  they  have  been  allowed 
to  manage  matters  in  their  own  fashion.  Moreover, 
Indian  coal  and  gold  do  not  compete  with  British 
industries.  Recent  legislation  regarding  Assam 
labour  too,  was  regarded,  and  in  my  opinion  not 
without  reason,  as  needlessly  harassing  to  the  planter, 
for,  if  the  coolie  can  be  trusted  to  knowr  when  he  is 
well  off,  he  is  so  in  Assam,  in  which  backward  little 
province  he  settles  wholesale,  to  its  great  benefit,  as 
soon  as  his  contract  term  is  over. 

Those  who,  like  myself,  knew  India  upwards  of 
thirty  years  ago  have  seen  with  their  own  eyes  in 
the  present  century  a  higher  standard  of  comfort 
prevailing,  better  clothes,  better  houses,  brass  instead 
of  earthen  pots,  and  such-like  indications  of  higher 
incomes  and  improved  circumstances.  There  is  no 
need  of  royal  commissions  for  such  as  have  read 
what  records  exist  of  past  times,  and  can,  from 

320 


ECONOMIC   POLICY 

personal  observation  and  from  actual  first-hand 
communication  with  the  peasants,  compare  with 
that  evidence  the  actual  conditions  of  the  pres- 
ent day. 


321 


INDEX 


AFGHAN  War,  24,  108. 
Age  of  Consent,  the,  243,  252. 
Agricultural  labourers,  306. 
Agriculture,  4;  department  of,  105. 
Ajit  Singh,  arrest  of,  200. 
Akbar,  21. 

Albuquerque,  Alphonse,  36. 
Alcohol,  introduction  of,  8. 
Amherst,  Lord,  40. 
Amrita  Bazaar  Patrika,  the,  187. 
"  Anandamath,"  175. 
Ancient  India,  3. 
Anglicists  and  Orientalists,  61. 
Army,  discontent  in  the,  168. 
Army  of  India,  the,  51. 
Arrian,  Greek  historian,  8. 
Asiatic  labour,  297. 
Auckland,  Viceroy  Lord,  39-40. 
Aurangzeb  grants  a  site  for  traders, 
35. 

HA  HAH,  founder  of  the  Mogul  dynasty, 

20. 

Babu,  significance  of,  65. 
Bande  Mataram,  174. 
Banking,  147. 
Bannerji,  Mr.,  180. 
Bassein,  Treaty  of,  152. 
Bengal,  partition  of,  170;  size  of,  3. 
Bengali,  the,  189. 
Bepin  Chandra  Pal,  Mr.,  183. 
Blomfield,  Mr.,  murder  of,  169. 
Bombay,  cession  of,  35;  size  of,  3. 
Boycott,  the,  171. 
Brahmin  Faith,  the,  5. 


British  provinces,  8. 
Buddha,  rise  of,  5-6. 
Budget,  the  Indian,  138. 
Burma,  size  of,  3. 

CABINET,  the  Indian,  104. 

Canning,  Lord,  41. 

Cashmere,  size  of,  3. 

Caste,  influence  of,  246-257. 

Causes  and  remedies  of  unrest,  217. 

Cavagnari,  Sir  Louis,  42. 

Child  marriages,  263. 

Civil  Service,  the,  112. 

Clive,  Lord,  36. 

Coinage,  ancient,  24. 

Commander-in-chief,  the,  106. 

Commerce,  department  of,  106. 

Confucius,  5. 

Congress,  the  Indian,  223. 

Costume,  ancient,  24. 

Cotton,  Sir  Henry,  232. 

Criminals,  262. 

Currency,  315. 

Curzon,  Lord,  42-45,  64. 

Customs  duties,  131. 

DALHOUSIE,  LORD,  40. 
Death,  ceremonies  at,  261. 
Debt,  the  national,  135. 
Deccan  Herald,  the,  194. 
Declaratory  Act,  the,  114. 
Departments,  the  Government,  104. 
Dionysius  on  India,  10. 
Discontent,  native,  167. 
Disloyalty,  proofs  of,  212. 


323 


INDEX 


Dost  Mohammed,  39. 

Dufferin,  Lord,  42. 

Durand  Convention,  the,  43. 

Dutch   East    India    Company,    the, 

86. 
Dutt,  R.  C.,  C.I.E.,  on  Land  System, 

69. 

EARLY  History,  3. 

East  India  Company,  the,  35;  trans- 
ferred to  the  Crown,  41. 

Economic  policy,  275. 

Education  among  the  Mohammedans, 
63;  female,  240. 

Ellenborough,  Lord,  40. 

Englishman,  the,  187. 

Exchange,  315. 

Exports,  302. 

FABLES  of  Pilpay,  the,  14. 
Faith,  the  Brahmin,  5. 
Family  life,  251. 
Famine  Code,  the,  84. 
Famine  Commission,  the,  76. 
Famine  Relief,  cost  of,  137. 
Famines,  70-81. 
Fely,  Sir  F.,  90. 
Female  education,  240. 
Finance  Department,  105. 
Fitzpatrick,  Sir  D.,  107. 
Foreign  office,  the,  104. 
Fort  St.  George  founded,  35. 
Free  trade,  300. 
French,  the,  in  India,  36. 
Frontiers,  Indian,  44. 
Fuel  hi  India,  318. 

GAEKWAR  of  Baroda,  31. 
Gaelic  American,  the,  166. 
Genghis  Khan,  10. 
Gold  mining,  305. 
Gold  Standard,  the,  146. 
Government  of  India,  the,  99. 


Governor-General,  103-104. 
Grecian  writers  on  India,  5-6. 

HARDIE,  MR.  KEIR,  M.P.,  184. 
Hardinge,  Lord,  40. 
Hastings,  Warren,  37. 
Hind  Swarajya,  the,  195. 
Hindoo  Mirror,  the,  191. 
Hindoo  Patriot,  the,  191. 
Historians  of  India,  early,  6. 
History,  the  early,  3. 
Holkar  of  Indore,  the,  31. 
Home  Government,  growth  of,  109. 
Home  office,  the,  105. 
Hunter,  Sir  William,  223. 
Hyder  Ali,  38. 
Hyderabad,  size  of,  3. 
Hyndman,  Mr.,  86-290. 

ILBERT,  SIR  COUBTENAT,  100. 

Illiteracy,  4. 

Immigration,  296. 

Imports,  302. 

Improvements,  taxation  of,  79. 

Indian  National  Congress,  224. 

Indian  parliamentary  committee,  the, 

162. 

Indian  Sociologist,  the,  166. 
Industries,  303. 
Industry,  department  of,  106. 

JAHANGIR,  27. 

Judicial  Administration,  114. 

Justice,  166. 

KITCHENER,     Lord    Commander-in- 
Chief,  49,  59. 

LABOUR  question,  the,  293. 
Labourers,  agricultural,  306. 
Labourites  in  India,  188. 
Lahore  Observer,  the,  192. 
Lajpat  Rai,  arrest  of,  200. 


324 


INDEX 


Land  System,  the,  68. 
Language,  influence  of,  247. 
Lawrence,  Lord,  41. 
Learning  in  India,  5. 
Local  Government,  107. 

MACAULAY,  LORD,  61. 
MacDonnell,  Sir  Antony,  95. 
Madras,  size  of,  3. 
Mahabharata,   the,   5;    on  famines, 

88. 

Mahmud,  reign  of,  13. 
Mahratta  War,  the  third,  38. 
Mahrattas,  the,  33. 
Malguzari  tenure,  71. 
Mansion  House  Funds,  91. 
Manu,  the  Code  of,  99. 
Manucca,  Niccolai,  history,  18. 
Manufactures,  303. 
Marriage,  258-271;  child,  263. 
Mayo,  Lord,  42. 

Megasthenes,  Greek  historian,  7. 
Military,  administration,  59;  native, 

153. 

Mining,  305. 
Ministry,  the,  104. 
Mirror,  the,  189. 
Moguls,  India  under  the,  17. 
Mohammedan  incursions,  11. 
Mohammedans,  attacks  on,  181. 
Moncrieff,  Sir  Colin  Scott,  48. 
Moneylenders,  309. 
Monsoon,  the,  and  famines,  93. 
Moral  character  of  natives,  245. 
Morley,  Mr.  John,  53. 
Moslem  Chronicle,  the,  192. 
Municipal  Government,  119. 

NANA  SAHIB,  38. 
Naoroji,  Mr.,  226. 
National  debt,  the,  135. 
Native  discontent,  167;  military,  153; 
States,  the,  149. 


Nautch  girls,  250. 

Newspapers,    influence   of,    187-189, 

193. 

Nizam,  the,  of  Hyderabad,  216. 
North,  Lord,  regulating  act,  101. 

OPIUM,  revenue  from,  129. 

Parsee  Chronicle,  the,  192. 

Partition,  the,  170-208. 

Peasantry,  the  Indian,  282-311. 

Pensions,  140. 

Pilpay,  the  fables  of,  14. 

Plassey,  battle  of,  37. 

Pliny  on  India,  10. 

Police  administration,  125. 

Poor  Law,  the,  84. 

Population,  density  of,  4;  distribution 

of,  113. 

Poverty  in  India,  286. 
Punjaubi,  the,  195. 

RAILWAY  Board,  106. 

Railway  system,  the,  133. 

Ramayana,  the,  5. 

Real  India,  the,  1. 

Reforms,  social,  240. 

Religious  beliefs,  256. 

Religious  sects,  4. 

Remarriage  of  widows,  241. 

Remedies  for  unrest,  218. 

Revenue  and  Agriculture  Department, 

105. 

Revenue,  from  land,  68. 
Revenues,  126. 
Riots,  203. 
Ripon,  Lord,  42. 
Roberts,  Field-Marshal,  42. 
Rupee,  value  of  the,  144. 
Russo-Japanese    War,    influence   of, 

202. 


SADI,  the  poet,  14-15. 
Satthianadan,  Mr.,  M.A.,  L.L.D.,  245. 


325 


INDEX 


Scholarship  in  India,  5. 

Sedition,  proofs  of,  212. 

Self-government,  local,  122. 

Sepoy  mutiny,  the,  41. 

Shah  Fehan,  reign  of,  27. 

Shastras,  the,  245. 

Sher  Ali,  41. 

Sikhs,  foundation  of  the,  30. 

Sindhias  of  Gwalior,  31. 

Sivaji,  28. 

Social  Reform,  240. 

Sport  in  India,  247. 

St.  Aldwyn,  Lord,  91. 

Stone  Age,  the,  4. 

"Storia  do  Moger,"  the,  18. 

Suttee,  244. 

Svadeshi,  171. 

Svaraj,  171. 

TAJ  MAHAL,  building  of  the,  28. 
Talukdari  tenure,  the,  71. 
Tamerlane.     See  Timour. 
Tariff  question,  the,  '314. 
Tartar  reign,  the,  15. 
Tax  collectors,  87. 
Taxation,  126,  276. 
Taylor,  Col.  Meadows,  263. 
Tenure,  land,  71. 


Textile  industry,  304. 

Tilak,  Mr.,  226. 

Timour  the  Tartar,  10,  16. 

Tippoo  Sahib,  38. 

Trade,  35,  292,  302. 

Tribune,  the,  190. 

Truth,  a  Western  ideal,  66. 

UNIVERSITY,  the  India  Society,  165. 
Unrest  in  India,  161. 

VEDAS,  age  of  the,  4. 
Viceroy  instituted,  103. 
Viceroys  of  India,  41-44. 

WAGES  in  India,  281-306. 
Wedderburn,  Sir  William,  237. 
Women,  influence  of,  267. 
Wood,  Sir  Charles,  62. 
Wood,  Sir  Evelyn,  historian,  41. 
Working  classes,  the,  309. 

YAKUB  KHAN,  42. 

Young,  Sir  Mackworth,  107. 

Yugantar,  the,  197. 

ZEMENDAEI  tenure,  the,  71. 
Zoroaster,  5. 


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